


A Satanas Cum Cura

by SpicySpaceBabe



Category: Ghost (Swedish Band)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Mentions of non-con, Multi, Psychic Girl accidentally transports into the heart of satanism more at eleven, air and earth are the only established relationship so far so, and god, back to Ruach Hakodesh with the weather, but only his physical body, im about to disappoint my mom and all my latin teachers, mentions of child abuse, papa emeritus the first is yabba dabba dead ufortunately
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-03-06 16:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13415313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicySpaceBabe/pseuds/SpicySpaceBabe
Summary: When you stand at a crossroads, not in body but in soul, and a thousand voices scream in your head and a thousand eyes are upon you, all you can do is fall in the devil's club at the bend.





	1. Intro Femina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Supurious](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Supurious).



> I have an innate terror of putting anything I make out into the world so enjoy this garbage trash fire thank u goodnight

     She knew she was dreaming, but her imagination had always been so powerful that, at times, it was difficult to differentiate between the two.  
  
Lorna was a maladaptive daydreamer, what was true and what was not melding together into a horribly overwhelming cacophony of sight and sound and smell and taste.  
  
A thin veil of gauzy red danced in front of her eyes, the pull of it settling low, past her shoulders and down her back, the front of it long enough to reach her knees, her body chilled from the air whipping around her. She could feel the warmth of her clothing in one part of her mind, but in the part she was lost to, the air made her uncomfortably aware of her breasts, objects of a femininity she had always been spiteful of.  
  
The fabric slid like the callused drag of palms everywhere it touched, warm and not, tiny ridges catching across her nipples.  
  
_She stood on a shore._  
  
_She stood in her bedroom._  
  
_She stood in a church._  
  
In all three, each of them coming and leaving as a theatrical scene with rolling parts and a confusing whirlwind of shuffling feet, there stood the shadow of a man.  
  
He wore a black mitre embroidered with sacrilegious imagery, and a chasuble, the silky fabric a color that soaked up all the light, billowing in the strong breeze of the ocean, settling to a deathly still in the dark shadows of her room, swaying and catching the energetic movements of his limbs in a Gothic pulpit all lit up with sultry reds, a bright white glow from the hollows of his eyes settling on her naked form, studying her beyond her skin and past the meat and even the first layers of her soul. She felt it like a physical limb, like the sheer shawl turning her vision crimson, dragging over her skin, digging into her with wicked claws.  
  
Today was worse than most, it would seem, for her grasp on reality.  
  
In most of her dreams, she could not feel changing temperatures, the heat usually the same as the place she was laying down in. Last she she’d known, she’d been shaking on the grimy tiles of her low-end apartment’s bathroom, her medicine only about halfway to her mouth before she’d been borderline _assaulted_  by the strength of flashing images and flushing heat and chilling stone.  
  
Lorna had started to think, around the time she’d turned fifteen, that whatever she saw was not the product of daydreaming, but visions. She had mentioned it in passing to her mother before the woman snapped, chasing her around their ragged house with a kitchen knife, and then she’d asked Jegudiel, who had obviously been hiding something vital from her. So, she dropped it.  
  
The truth probably wasn’t worth the work it took to get it.  
  
She opened her clenched eyes, head pounding with all the force of a hammer against an anvil, and realized that the hazy air, plush red carpet, and stone floor most certainly were  _not_ features of her dumpy apartment.  
  
She stayed still, huddled into a dark, shadowy corner under what was shaped like pew, a silent plea to Jegudiel screaming like the Rapture through her head and from her racing heart. But all turned woozy and spotty when the rush of wind and the elastic snap of her consciousness whipped back into her head, and she found herself falling, falling, falling...  
  


* * *

She awoke to the chapel all lit up with the midday sun, body chilled and shaking, fingertips blue. The resounding echo of a man met her static-filled head. There were feet hanging off the seat of the pew in front of the one she hid under, tucked away into a corner, but there was no murmur of bored children and none of the well-polished dress shoes swung in absentmindedness. They were enthralled.

She popped her head up, clenching her jaw against her chattering teeth.  
  
The rich voice booming in the vaulted space was full of life, painted lips upturned as he sang and preached and praised the name of his dark lord, the dimples in his cheeks deepened by the black hollows. His movements were animated and crisp and just too _real_  to be a dream. Oh, she wished this were just another damned dream!  
  
If it were a dream, he would have sprouted horns and set a blood thirsty fork tongue to her arteries before that plush mouth opened for his first word, and she would be in the midst of dying before she woke to her elderly neighbor calling for her long dead cat. 

She pinched herself, but she was too numb to feel her jagged fingernails as they pierced the skin of her side.  
  
A parish of impish men and women took up offerings, their whip-like tails twitching and curling around the seated congregations’ limbs, picking up money from willing palms, or sifting through purses for a stick of gum, an action she found oddly endearing, and sometimes, to her shock and horror, a pair of lacy panties from the floor every couple of rows. Maybe she really _was_ still dreaming, the blonde was sure that she'd seen masked men with tails in a dream before...She took a greater stock of her surroundings, so crisp and strange and, unfortunately, still very real.  
  
The stained glass depicted things she was too shy to name, familiar faces of Hell, a being ringed in light with a pair of tall, curling black horns, scorched feathers at his clawed feet. The light pouring through from the setting Sun bathed the altar in a rich kaleidoscope of reds and violets, tall trees casting wavering, snake-like shadows over the stone floors.  
  
She looked back to the man who was so very  _alive_ , so much more alive than she was, grounded and sure, a peace in his mismatched eyes that was so contradictory with the purposeful strides across the raised platform of the pulpit.  
  
One an earthly hazel, more green than not, the other, supernaturally white.  
  
Those eyes locked onto her from her shadowy hiding spot, invisible claws finding purchase in her mind, drawing her frozen body to a stand as he stopped, stock still, arms open wide as if to receive her, beckoning her without words or motion.  
  
She took an involuntary step forward, then another, and another and another, and that soft, welcoming grin had turned into a full blown, satisfied smirk, the whited eye burning brightly in that painted socket. Something young and innocent screamed and wept in the back of her now silent skull as she found herself within the anti-pope’s grasp, the weight of his hands settling on her thin, bony shoulders, the yards of fabric draped over his body encasing her nakedness from the view of the audience save for a sliver of the line of her back and her head, hot breath smelling of anise and cloves and wine washing over her, rustling the fly-away baby hairs at her temples as he sighed. She wanted to run, wanted to collapse, but she couldn't move...he radiated a warmth so intense it _stung_.  
  
The leather of his gloves creaked in her ears, the blood rushing to her head making it difficult to hear what he was saying. Bright white teeth, a rolling, blood red tongue, and his thunderous tenor, the strange amalgamated accent still not breaking through the roar of her dissociation and panic.  
  
She still didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten here.

His hands, long fingered and gentle, rose from her shoulders to cup her jaw, palms cradling her weakening body to a stand, tipping her chin to look up at him.  
  
A black fork tongue swiped at that plump bottom lip as he spoke, scenting the air, tasting her mounting fear as he began to hiss.  
  
The world went out of focus, and the last thing she felt were copper talons finding purchase at the back of her neck and the small of her spine, and long limbs wrapping around her to draw her in further to that black silk abyss.

She fell.

  
  



	2. Who in Seven Devils are You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The confusion only grows for Lorna as she's thrown into a linguistic nightmare,,,, and so is the author (I'm sorry mrs. B) and end on a weird fake cliffhanger thank u for reading

The fingers wrapped painfully around her bicep would have made her cry out every time the ghoul attached to them squeezed had she not been dissociating at the scene before her, passively tuning in and out with every droned syllable in a language she didn’t understand.  
  
After she’d woken up to the unholy sermon from her hiding place under a couple of the back pews, that hypnotizing voice calling her to walk into a black silk embrace, the arms of this Church, in a way, then passed out from the sheer _wrongness_ of a flicking snake’s tongue and the hint of long fangs and the Satanic imagery, she’d had little time to really process what was happening around her. Even after waking up  _again_ , yet that time in the most comfortable cot she'd ever slept in, warm and cozy and being watched by a woman in a habit, she wasn't given much information beyond that something was to be 'done about her'.  
  
There was a lot of passing out and waking up in strange, unfamiliar places, and Lorna found that she was _not_  a fan. She didn't even have her medicine to keep the visions at bay, though thankfully, they were not as drastic as the last one, each one passing through her head like oil through water, gentle watercolors, faint scents.  
  
The _incredibly_ old man and woman at the joint gavel had their heads bowed together, whispering inaudibly amongst themselves. At their age, which Lorna supposed was, and she was being generous, their mid- _nineties_ , she was surprised they could hear each other.  
  
She was inclined to believe though, that perhaps, they weren’t speaking verbally at all. She had seen enough weird shit in the past twenty four hours and in the course of her twenty three years of life  that she honestly wouldn’t have been surprised. She was surrounded by demons in a place that radiated an energy she knew Jegudiel would be unwilling to cross. She knew _this_ , at least. Could feel it in her bones.   
  
The woman’s eyes, a glittering brown so deep they were almost black, cut to her as the duo seemed to come to a decision, wizened bodies shifting in their plush, burgundy velvet seats to face the audience of whispering clergy again.  
  
That was what it was, too; an audience. It was like a show, and all the world was there to watch as she stuttered and blushed and tried to explain herself, but wasn’t allowed to speak. Lorna wasn’t even sure why she was here, or why they didn’t just kick her out when she showed up naked and sobbing in a darkened corner of the nave, tucked between the pews and shaking from the chill of the stone floor.  
  
Perhaps it was a good thing that their charismatic preacher had found her first and not the temperamental men who currently held her up by her shoulders, claws drawing pinprick red where they pierced the surface skin.  
  
Lorna still wasn’t really clothed, only draped in a donated, sauce stained button up that was far, far too large for her.  
  
She had heard her two judges’ voices not long before they had begun their conspirator’s whispering; the woman’s voice shaking but melodious with a slight Boston accent, the man’s, the cracking roll of thunder, chopped up and gasping for air as they spoke over one of the irate men with whip-like tails as he roared in an odd tongue, gesturing viciously at her. It was fair, she probably reeked of Heaven. And ammonia because of a rat infestation she couldn't stamp out of her shitty apartment, but that was neither here nor there.  
  
The room was almost pregnant with the hush that had suddenly fallen as the woman stood, swaying slightly on the spot, her numerous, heavy necklaces shining and clinking together as she shook, black, draping fabrics unnaturally still.  
  
“In loco parentis, damus clero.”  
  
It was obvious that whatever was said, the masked men, who she guessed were members of the clergy that stood behind her, did _not_ appreciate the verdict. It was about her, else she wouldn’t be here at all, but she was neither Catholic nor did she speak a lick of Latin. Jegudiel had only introduced her to _snippets_ of Hebrew...he'd never been too fond of the Romans. The cacophonous timber of their joined voices, clergy of masked men and hooded friars and cloaked women, all yelling, all screaming for reconsideration in a hundred tongues, made her head spin, the buzzing disconnect starting at the base of her spine all the way to behind her eyes.  
  
_**“Silentium!”**_  
  
The old man had stood, gnarled hands slamming down onto the hollow mahogany table with a resounding crack, a snarl twisting his heavily wrinkled face into a gargoyle’s rage, a clear command booming throughout the temporarily converted religious space. White hair fanned like a madman's halo around the crown of his old head.  
  
She felt like her consciousness had been slammed back down into the seat of her body, her eyes snapping back into focus, her usually blurry vision unnaturally clear as the visage of Satan, of the Morning Star, glared down at her from the stained glass.  
  
He continued with the same expression, milky eyes blazing with an unnatural light, and the crowd shut up again, captive and wide-eyed and some, bashful; humans with bright red cheeks and demons with tails curled around their legs as the old one flayed them alive with his quick tongued admonishments.  
  
Lorna almost cried when she spotted a forked tongue flicking between his worn down teeth and a pair of yellowed, cracked fangs. Hissing and spitting with thunder under his tongue. For some odd reason, the oddities of the mouth were so much worse than seeing long tails and glowing eyes, for her.   
  
Why couldn’t she have woken up in a _normal_ church? Why did it have to be the antithesis to the Catholic church, a place where her guardian could not reach her?  
  
God must be testing her strength in faith or character or something, but Lorna wasn’t sure she was strong enough to deal with actual demons. She was barely strong enough to handle rabid soccer moms.  
  
The rumble petered out as the elder in his priestly, strangely papal, robes was passed an oxygen mask, the older woman having procured it from, to Lorna, thin air.  
  
One of the masked demons not handling her spoke, his own voice low but strong. Not the same hellish timbre as the Old One gasping in mouthfuls of air at the pulpit, but worldly enough for her to know that he had a measure of authority here.  
  
She still had no idea what was happening, the rough tongue spilling from his throat as his tail whipped at the space behind him was like nothing she’d ever heard, hissing and deep-chested rumbles and harsh consonants springing clearly despite the cover over his mouth.  
  
If he _had_ a mouth.  
  
She tuned out the interactions, studying the people around her.  
  
The masked men were all much taller than her, save one who was shorter, the soft slope of their hips telling her that she probably wouldn’t be subjected to any _odd_  sexist nonsense. Maybe just the regular level.  
  
One of the men holding her shook the shoulder they were grasping, the joint crackling ominously with every jerk.

As Lorna spaced out, she missed the entrance of the very demon who had brought warmth back to her stiff limbs, his sudden appearance before the much, much older version of himself with that same charismatic openness, changing the atmosphere greatly. He was speaking some weird mix of Italian and Latin, so she drowned it out with the rush in the back of her head.  
  
She was going to have a dream soon, or, a vision. Not like the little ones playing in the back of her head, but another big one. Maybe she shouldn't have taken her medicine for so long...maybe she'd let them build up without outlet.  
  
She hadn’t noticed him when he came in, but she definitely noticed when his ungloved hand came up her jaw to tip her dazed face up to the light. He studied the way her eyes dilated as _she_ studied the way the corners of his mouth curled and the dimples of his cheeks and chin as he smirked down at her.  
  
“She stays.” His breath was cool against her cheeks, similar but different from when he’d held her face when she interrupted his sermon. Her face felt hot and she knew it was because so many eyes bore into the back of her skull, into her skin, following and tracing the bony angles that the thin fabric of the button-up couldn't hide. “And I will hear nothing more about it, Omega.”

He was bare of his chasuble and mitre, the fabric of a cinctured alb brushing against his ankles. His eyes were kind despite the intimidating face paint. Knowing. 

"Can we have a name, Little One?" 

"I am-My name is Lorna."


	3. IT HAS A DOOR AND A LOCK AND A REAL WINDOW AND VENTILATION AND-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorna Buckles The Fuck in and sleeps in a bathtub and everyone thinks shes a kid but she doesn't say otherwise aha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is turning out to be a lot longer than i thought it would be

 

Growing up, she’d always had her own room. But, this was different. This was so very different. It was given to her without any true expectation, all because she’d caught the eye of a Satanic Pope in somehow.

Nothing was given without expectation, however, and she just couldn’t wait to see how this would come back to bite her in the ass. Everything was so confused...Lorna still wasn’t sure how she’d come to be in the nave of their most holy-or, rather, unholy-chapel, she wasn’t sure exactly what the verdict of her fake trial, and she was wondering, also, where the Hell Jegudiel was. She had called out for him before losing  consciousness the second time, but she guessed the energy she had felt earlier was really unpleasant. Either way, she was going to give him a face full of bitter, starved young adult if she ever saw him again.

After her mini-trial, something that was less trial and more ‘ _what the fuck do we do with this weird kid_ ’ by her rough translation of events without knowing hardly anything that was said, the Pope-who she learned from the Nuns, was called Emeritus, or Papa-had left with an entourage of ghouls in tow, giving the platinum blonde an indecipherable wink as he directed a pair of Nuns-do they even call themselves nuns-to make her comfortable as a guest of the Church.  
  
She had a pretty good idea of the decided outcome, even if only words she could understand had come from the dark pope telling one of the larger masked men that she would stay. They were setting her up somewhere; one of the nuns was carrying a bundle of sheets, and the other a large wicker basket full of basic toiletries. Lorna was still mostly nude with her fingers furling and unfurling, jagged nails digging into the meat of her palms. A buzz was building in the back of her skull, spreading from her nape down her arms.

She resolutely ignored it.  
  
They could have put her in a supply closet and she would have been content for the familiarity, but even then, it probably would have been much more livable than most of the places she’d slept in growing up. At least she was walking behind the two women and not beside or in front of them, being made to walk with their hands on her back to steer her in the right direction. Too many people had seen her naked for her to ever be comfortable ever again.   
  
After what felt like thirty minutes of walking through ancient halls with long, broad strips of burgundy carpet runner, every space not cut out for a window taken up by either a mirror or a tapestry, Lorna’s eyes were strained from the sudden hyper-awareness her body was presenting and the splashes of intense vibrancy in the sea of dark grays and rich browns and void blacks, they finally stopped in a smaller hallway lined with tall, mahogany doorways on both sides.  
  
The tall sister reached into a pouch loosely tied to her cincture, shifting the thick fabric bundle to her hip as she drew out a small ring of keys.  
  
If this was one of the lesser bedrooms, then she couldn’t even _begin_  to imagine how luxuriant and rich actual clergy members’ rooms were. Through the deep, unlit shadows, she could make out walls painted in a welcoming, duckling yellow, a four poster bed wide enough across for three people to lay shoulder to shoulder, an armoire, a bookshelf, light glinted off what looked like another door knob.

The nuns were sure in their footing as they strode into the room, but Lorna was immensely _not_. This was _too_  nice, even in the dark.

There was even a lock on the _i_ _nside_  of the door, and by her experience, living with other people had meant that they felt they were entitled to enter your room at any time, with anyone, no matter that it made you uncomfortable and...usually ended in pain or terror. When she’d moved into her dinky apartment building, she’d saved up enough money singing on street corners to buy new locks for the front door and three for the inside of her bedroom. This room just came with the lock _already_ there.  
  
The shorter sister had gone over to a pair of cream colored drapes on the far wall, the edges embroidered with thick, burgundy threading, and beat them with her bare palms, dust visibly flying. She threw them open after a short sneeze, the room flooding with the day’s light.  
  
Lorna found herself overcome.  
  
The room she’d slept in in her mom’s house hadn’t had a window she could open, her mother having nailed it shut to keep her from getting out at night, but this one...after the nun had moved on to check what she guessed was a restroom, the first thing she did was walk to the ancient glass to unlatch the hook and gently pry it open, getting up onto her knees on the faded window seat.  
  
The last thing she wanted now was to fuck up whatever was happening, because so far, it was looking much better than the biohazard apartment building that she could barely afford.  
  
The breeze felt like heaven, even as it slid over her still chilled body, rustling her shaggy bangs and whispering through the thin material of her borrowed button-up. It was fresh and crisp and musky with the scent of burning fires and decaying leaves. Heavenly. Enrapturing. The window was high from the ground, affording her a faint view of rolling hills beyond the thick forest surrounding the church grounds. Lorna tried not to let herself get too excited, keeping in mind that nothing was permanent, and that few things had ever gone right for her. She also knew, however, that she was a horrible actress and an even worse liar.  
  
She slipped off the window seat.  
  
Lorna could feel the nuns watching her as she stumbled around the room taking in all the richly made furniture, rolling their eyes when she ran her fingertips over the satin cover sheets on the bed, vibrated with excitement at having a window that fulfilled its actual purpose.  
  
“It’s the middle of November, you might want to close that window and _keep_  it closed.” And she probably should, it _was_  kinda chilly.  
  
They both had slight accents, nationalities she couldn’t quite place having never really had any media that was _her’s_  in her mother’s house. If Lorna had had anything worth selling after she’d escaped, it had already been sold by the time it came into her desperate hands.  
  
Except for her knives. Those were gifts from Jegudiel and she would not _ever_  let those go, hidden away in a vault at a bank she knew her mother would never frequent.  
  
“It isn’t too bad. I’ll-“  
  
“I’m not sure where you’re from, little girl, but we like to keep the heat _in_ , not let it out. Besides, I’m not sure how much you can feel given that your skin is blotched purple.” She felt said skin prickle. They’d been talking down to her for the whole half hour she’d been with them, but she could handle that, she told herself. Mother had been an expert at it.  
  
It was fair; she was probably being silly with the indulgence. But, she _had_ been about to say she’d close it her damn self.  
  
Lorna wasn’t sure if they had to pay a heating bill or not, but the place seemed so large that it felt silly that one window could cause such a fuss. They were probably just annoyed that the two had to ‘make her comfortable’, or that their Pope had given a naked stranger a private room. Probably both.  
  
The tall nun carrying the bundle of bedsheets and key ring looked to her after closing and latching the window one-handedly, “I trust you don’t need us to help you make your bed?”  
  
“Oh no, I can do that just fine.” She’d been taking care of herself for a long, long time. Dressing the bed was nothing.  
  
The short one carrying the wicker basket came out of the restroom with a pleased look on her round face, setting the large basket on the foot of the bed. A bed that was far, _far_ too spacious for just one person. God, she was going to be swallowed up by that thing, it was too big. Too open.  
  
“So, where are you from, anyway? And why the Hell are you here? Are you an angel-agent like Omega said?”  
  
Angel-agent?  
  
They didn’t seem too happy that she didn’t answer right away, brows furrowed, eyes shining in curiosity, but she really didn’t have an answer for them. She had no damn  _idea_  why or how she was wherever the fuck she was. Or what an angel-agent was. Did she really stink of Jegudiel that bad? The angel of merciful love and responsibility hadn’t visited in so long, it seemed unlikely.  
  
“Well?”  
  
The door slammed open, and she jumped at the sound, thoughts scattering, the buzz spiking then flatlining as she watched the thick door shake on the hinges, the entry way welcoming two masked figures cloaked in all black. Two pairs of bright eyes peeked from the eyeholes of their silver masks. One, short and thin and standing straight with a potted plant in hand, the other, just a bit taller with their hands perched on their hips. “Sisters, I think we can take this interrogation from here.” The voice was distinctly feminine and raspy with cigarette’s smoke. Low and measured, and, as it seemed everyone was here, slightly accented.  
  
The shorter Sister spoke, flicking a stray chunk of red hair from her eyes, “Sister Imperator gave us the go ahead, _ghoul_ , and besides, we’re helping her settle in. So, you might as well leave.”  
  
The one holding the plant bit back in a sickly sweet tone, spike-tipped tail whipping at the space behind them, and Lorna wondered if they had mouths underneath those masks. “ _Dearest_ Sister Janice, I know that you were fucking the visiting Bishop from Mexico in Imperator Elizabeth’s office, so unless you want that getting out-“ Masculine, yet not aggressive or rumbling. Friendly, middle-pitched, and grounded.  
  
“Alright! _Alright_ , you gossip whore, we’ll go.”  
  
They went, and she was left alone with more strangers, but they weren’t threatening or aggressive in their posturing, movements smooth and confident. Everyone here seemed to just  _r_ _adiate_  confidence.  
  
“They weren’t being rude, I hope they won’t get in trouble for not...uhm...”  
  
“Those two?”-The shorter one began a clipped walk past her, setting the plant he’d brought on top of a vanity tucked into the corner-“They’re Sister Imperator’s favorites, so you have no need for worry.”  
  
The other spoke up, voice not at all muffled by the ghoul mask over their head, the alchemical sign for water highlighted in white thread on their chest, “Lorna, yes?”  
  
“I-“ she coughed “- _Yes_ , I am Lorna.” It was odd to say her own name, stranger still to hear it in so friendly a manner. Jegudiel had never called her by her name, always telling her the power that names held for angels and demons, instead calling her little nicknames and terms of endearment.  
  
She wondered where he had gone in the years after she had escaped, only watching her from afar, never visiting when her hours were at their darkest as he once did.  
  
“I am Water, and the one with the plant is Earth.” Earth, as Water called him, was already puttering about in the spartan room, inspecting a dead lavender bed on the window sill from the former occupant, tsking at the wilting rose vines just outside the window he’d opened with as about as much gentleness as a raging bull in a china shop.  
  
_Why was he leaning so far over the edge, oh Christ, he was going to fall-_  
  
“More nicknames?”  
  
“We are called ‘nameless’ as a whole, but we do give ourselves names. Now, a question for me-“  
  
“Hold on, Water,” Earth had a pleasant voice, Lorna decided, “Let’s get her settled in first. And maybe get her some clothes, too, you’re fingers are turning purple!”  
  
He hadn’t closed the window after he’d crawled off the window seat with far less slipping than she had. Lorna was starting to get the feeling that she was too short, even here.  
  
Earth pulled out a pack of clothing from literal nothingness; shaking his hand, a bag appearing with a telltale crinkle of drugstore plastic. She didn’t question it; her angelic guardian had done all sorts of weird, supernatural shit without thinking about it back when she’d been a child.  
  
It was the best feeling in the world to slip soft sweatshirts over her achingly cold shoulders and quivering chest, and to put her thin, thin legs into a pair of too-big sweatpants of the same, slate grey color. No holes, no weird stains. She had to tie the waist band with a string that Earth handed her a bit sheepishly with a muffled apology of ‘ _they didn’t tell me you were so skinny_.’  
  
It was nice.  
  
Too nice.  
  
She felt like crying.  
  
“What do you all want from this?”  
  
Two pairs of confused eyes looked up from packing black uniforms away into the armoire.  
  
Water motioned for Earth to continue with the unpacking, the other ghoul walking into the adjoining bathroom to make sure the pipes still worked as she checked the armoire for appropriate day clothes. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean that this is all...this is all too nice. Nothing ever comes without a price, ma’am. Even from Angels.”  
  
Those hazel eyes crinkled at the inner corner, confusion still clear as the sun outside, “You’re a ward of the clergy now, all that’s expected of you is maybe a few chores. You’ll mostly be learning necessary skills or working in the libraries." That silver mask glinted dully as the other woman tilted her head, _blue eyes multiplying in negatives and bleeding and-_ Lorna blinked, popping her thumb joint. "Why? Did you expect something else?”  
  
_A ward?_ Lorna was well over the age of being a child or dependent, so why would she be a ward of their religious institution? “Actually, yeah, I haven’t had the best experiences with the people willing to take me in.”  
  
“American, right?”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“Are you talking about Salvation Army or your parents specifically?”  
  
“Is it bad if I say both?”  
  
“ _ **Knulla Mig!**_ “ The sound of rushing water and groaning pipes, and the slapping of palms flooded into the moderately sized room. Water’s eyes flicked from Lorna to the open doorway of the bathroom. The ghoul could hear how the smaller girl's heart raced, could smell her fear like a tangible thing.  
  
“Earth?”  
  
“It’s fine! Nothing went wrong, at all!”  
  
Lorna went to go check on the smaller man, but a raised palm from Water stopped her. It was a universal signal for ‘wait, do not.’ “He should be fine; he’s pretty handy. I can see where you’re coming from, with that line of thought. I was the same way.”  
  
A faint ‘ _so was I_ ’ drifted in from the bathroom.  
  
“We won’t keep you for long, you're probably exhausted. Earth is going to come by at seven tomorrow morning to pick you up for breakfast, and we can tell you more then.”  
  
Earth came back in, drenched to the bone and smelling foil, black cassock clinging to all his sharp angles and ridges. The mask was still in place.

“Sister Janice left you a little hazing gift in the shower. I’ve cleaned it up, though,"-he gave a short laugh-"so it should be fine. Pipes work alright, and so does the vent.”  
  
Lorna was speechless, her throat tight, face heating. She could barely choke out a small ‘thank you’ in return.  _They were so nice, everything was so nice._  
  
Water reached out, palm open, and Lorna accepted it, shaking hands with the now not sofrightening stranger. “Think nothing of it, Little Lorna. We’ll see you in the morning, yes?”  
  
She nodded, still quiet.

"Oh, also, never call me ma'am ever again. It makes me feel old and responsible." The laughter in the woman's eyes was clear, so Lorna didn't take the request at its face value. Water was leveling herself as an equal, not a better, and the daydreamer appreciated that. She appreciated it a lot. Especially since they all thought she was a child; a minor still old enough to be a legal ward.  
  
Earth exited first, but turned around in the doorway, “I don’t like it, but there’s a box of crackers and some water bottles in the basket to hold you over until tomorrow. Goodnight!”  
  
And they were gone.  
  
“Goodnight”, but she said it too late, the noise carrying through her empty room.  
  
She was alone, dressed warmly, frizzy hair rustling in the slight breeze coming from the still-open window, fingers tingling and bright pink with the rush of blood back to her thin palms. She  _was_ exhausted, but there was still an energy. Still things to do.  
  
Lorna decided to make the bed, desperate for something, too spent to explore her room- _her_ room-any closer.  
  
The sun hadn’t begun to descend, yet, but it did sit fat and low in the evening sky, so she grabbed a water bottle and the box of crackers from the wicker basket, careful not to look at herself in the mirror, and sat on the window seat until night had begun to bleed into the colors of day and her eyes began to droop. Rich oranges and pinks and purples ate at the clear blue until a bruised violet made up the sky 

The bed...the bed was still too big. Too much too soon. She drug the top sheet off, bunching it in her arms so it would drag the floor and put it in the tub, making a nest out of the small space.  
  
It was safe, cozy, and, secure. Lorna had made sure to lock the door to the main room three times, the lock on the window once, and the lock to the bathroom twice. She was down for the night, and no one could get in. Not without her permission.  
  
The first true night of sleep not forced by her horribly weak body was spent in a small tub attached to the wall, shower curtain drawn closed, and huddled in a thick, satiny duvet as she concentrated on filtering the voices and flashing lights down to something manageable enough for her to sleep.  
  
She was in Heaven.

* * *

  
  
As soon as the door shut, Earth was already all over her, an indecipherable twinkle clear through his deep, brown eyes, strong hand pulling at the tight collar of her jacket enough to make her choke.  
  
“A handshake?! Really?!”  
  
Water shook off that hardened grip, walking swiftly away from the scene of the crime, feeling hot behind her heavy mask. “I got nervous, okay! Did you see how scared she looked, I wanted to keep it professional!”  
  
Earth rushed to walk ahead of her, now backwards and still incredulous. “Water, we’re _musicians and priests,_ not _lawyers._ You could have at least patted her shoulder or something! _A handshake?!!_ What is she? Forty? She's a kid!”  
  
“Well, _mom_ , I didn’t see _you_  doing anything.” He screeched to stop, nearly falling backwards, tripping her up in the process.  
  
**_“_ _Me?!_** I walked _right_ into that _fucking_ -"  
  
“ _What_ are you two fussing about?” The voice was rough-hewn, deep chested; low. The cast of the shadow long in the hallway, their quick pace had led them to the main hall between the residential complex and the cafeteria hall.  
  
The duo stopped still at the authoritative voice, Earth recovering from the start just before Water. “Just talking about our guest, is all, Omega. I’m also making fun of Water.”  
  
The taller man nodded, ribbing people was just something that Earth did, so that he’d been making fun of Water didn’t surprise him.  
  
Water took the quintessence ghoul in, noting the frustrated set of his shoulders and the sliver of skin exposed at his throat, but said nothing of it. Usually, she would be the first one to ask what had upset a person. This time she knew, and didn't have to ask, at all. “She’s an awfully timid kid.”  
  
“It could be an act.” Ah, there it was. She could feel that Earth had been waiting for this, as well.  
  
Earth scoffed, “Are you kidding me? She’s too raw for that, she almost cried when I told her that we gave her a box of plain crackers.”  
  
“Still-“  
  
“No, Omega, she’s not a _spy_. She smells like one, but her aura was nothing but truth.” Water sighed internally. Their bear of a brother meant well, but he was stubborn. He’d probably never warm up to having Lorna in their sacred space. She didn’t blame him, though; the girl absolutely reeked of heaven, and it really wasn’t that pleasant a smell for Hell-bound demons.  
  
Omega huffed, letting the tension fall from his spine, the shrewd crinkle of his eyes relaxing, too. “I trust your judgements, but that doesn’t mean-“  
  
Earth stopped him before he could finish his sentence, lightly smacking the larger man on the belly, “No, it doesn’t, you big goof. Now, let’s go get something to eat, I’m fucking _starved_.”

"Before we go to dinner, I have to ask. What the _fuck_ is that awful smell, Earth?" Water snickered under her breath, hoping that Earth wouldn't hear, but knowing he had by the twitch of his eyelid.

"Never you goddamn mind, big boy. _Sister Janice_ , however, is about to get in a _shitload_ of trouble for it."


	4. Pilfered Pastries and Light BDSM???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhh Lorna is lucky the band is off of touring season and also i hope i got these characterizations at least somewhat natural

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear we r getting to the story i am just sloooooow 
> 
> edit: also i went back and edited this a little, i felt it was too bare bones and there were too many glaring language mistakes for me to comfortably leave it

Cool air laid stagnate around her, thick fog hanging low to the ground. Weak candle flames reflected light through the water vapors, casting strange, ever changing shadows, filling the air with thin threads of smoke.  
  
She felt heavy and weighted, her limbs slow, hot, languid. There was no hurry, no panicked beat of her heart-only still. Only calm.  
  
Eyes in the gloom; shining, retroreflecting the light back at her in greens and reds and violets, the levels of eyes rising, rising, rising to above where she could see. They murmured low, soothing, staticky.  
  
Tilting her head back made her aware of a heavy crown of wires, the thorns of it drawing blood to run down her face, over her brow, cascading, dripping off her lashes, down her cheeks, off the soft curve of her jaw, staining her white cotton night gown in streaks of burgundy, puddling at her feet as a scream built in the black space behind her.  
  
But she was still calm. Still unbearably calm and immovable.  
  
She was so _heavy._  
  
She was so _tired._  
  
_Primum Movens._ _Prime Mover,_ something whispered.  
  
Warmth flooded her belly, the shining glow of the eyes turning to a gas fire with a great shriek, the soft cries all turning to Coliseum roars as the dark receded with a pop, the air vibrating and pulsing, fog rising into great vespers all around her.  
  
A Mountain of twisting bodies, chanting and reveling and singing higher, higher, higher, into great vaulted ceilings, all crying praise as a six winged figure manifested itself before them, hanging in statuesque repose between her and the horde.  
  
She felt so small.  
  
Wings of copper and gold and starlight were still as it hovered, covering face, nakedness, and hurt; showcasing grace, otherworldliness, and power.  
  
The light grew until it consumed every last thing, silencing the horde, killing the dark, leaving her blinded, grasping at the air, gritting her teeth against the uncomfortably throaty, reverberating cries sitting on the back of her tongue.  
  
Her heart still pounded sluggishly.  
  
Fingers were at her jaw, a rhythmic pulsing pressing against her ears, the tone too low for her to hear. _Pure energy. Undying light._

* * *

  
  
Something flew from her sheets as she shot awake, the object rolling across the dark wood floor, under the quickly burdening book case.  
  
_It was a dream._  
  
_Only a dream._  
  
Her face felt cold and tight, and bringing her palm up to scrub at her cheeks told her of old and new tear tracks melding together. She felt...warm. Uncomfortably warm.  
  
The lonely dark of her room didn’t seem quite as safe as it had before she’d passed out with her herbology notes in her lap, the gloom of the hours before dawn eating at the tender security she’d tricked herself into to try and sleep in the four-poster bed for the first time.  
  
_It wasn’t just a dream. It was never just a dream._  
  
Lorna slipped off the bed from under the warm sheets, slightly damp with sweat, gathered up the top sheet and the fluffy pillow she’d found hidden in the boards under the mattress, and settled in the comfort of the bathroom until the Sun climbed wearily onto its early morning throne, a cloak of pastels following him.  
  
She was still all bundled up in the thick top sheet, hunkered down into the barriers of her tub, watching the strange petals of the plant Earth gave her her first night, sway in the currents of vent circulation when the knock came at her door an hour earlier than usual.  
  
The day starts. 0600 hours.

* * *

  
  
Earth had never considered himself much of a morning person, but the longer he walked upon the planet of Nephilim and born sinners, the more he found himself taking to the idea of watching the young star it orbited rise more so than he did watch it fall.  
  
He liked beginnings more so than endings, though one could argue that nightfall wasn’t an end, but another beginning, and one he should probably be more comfortable with. But, no. Earth had fallen in love with the day.  
  
All the plants in the gardens _sang_  in the day, blooming and mating and basking in the Sun, and hummed at night as they slept, and though that was beautiful, too, he found he was more energized by the bustle and business of day. He never stopped moving, always working hard with his hands, vibrating with unspent action potentials, drumming with his fingers when he was supposed to be still, shaking his leg and when he was told to stop, he'd whip his tail through the air behind him, rhythmically wrapping and unwrapping the appendage from around his legs or the legs of whatever chair he was sitting on.  
  
He’d even picked up knitting just to have something to do on the long car rides during tours, though the click of the needles annoyed Alpha to no end, it helped him think, therefore helping the creative process, so there was nothing the fire ghoul could do about it.  
  
To spite Alpha, he made sure to knit every meeting he could without getting yelled at by Sister Imperator, but that had left him with an ungodly number of scarves and sweaters and socks of various sizes all in a pile the earth ghoul had pushed to the back of his closet. He should probably start giving those away...the pile was, embarrassingly enough, past his waist in height, and he was starting to feel like a hoarder.  
  
Thankfully for their newest guest, mysterious and skinny and nervous, the band aspect of Clergy life was in a healthy lull. It was brainstorming time, not touring time, and if Lorna had appeared without Papa there...she probably wouldn’t have gotten so lucky as she was. Sister Imperator was a hard, fair woman, but even she had her limits when it came to naked minors interrupting a Sermon or Ritual.  
  
He knew it was a little earlier- _a whole hour and a half_ -than when he usually came to get her, but he also knew that she had never slept well; rising long before the sun and going to sleep well after it had fallen. Besides, if they got an early start, they could shovel as many pastries as they wanted into their napkins and no one would be around to stop them. He was about to introduce the feral fawn into the world of little sins, one sin at a time, he had decided.  
  
Lorna was on garden duty every other day, which meant she was going to work with _him_ today and with Air in the libraries tomorrow. Her insatiable desire to learn everything and anything about what seasons were best for what plant, what was edible and what was not, which herbs eased what ailment or improved what, was _incredibly_ refreshing. Even most of the ghouls who were under his element didn’t pay nearly half the attention she did. She'd sparked Air's interest as well with her ever growing list of books she was determined to read.  
  
When he’d asked about her interest in plants, she’d told him that she’d grown up in the poorer parts of Chicago; not a lot of room for plants to grow in the cracks between layers and layers of concrete.  
  
Lorna was still unbearably silent, but he’d gotten a healthy amount of smiles and soft giggles that she brought her palm up to hide.  
  
There was hope for the tiny blonde, yet, and it overjoyed him that she was taking to her residency so well, even if she wasn’t allowed out where non-clergy members might see her, which was really just the chapel and confessional and on the off-chance that they had an outside guest, her own room hall, had a curfew of ten at night, and also had an unfortunate fear of Sister Imperator. The witch honestly wasn’t _that_  bad, so Earth supposed it was a matter of getting used to her loud, no-nonsense, and aggressive personality.  
  
The residency hall was stained in the rising oranges and pinks of the dawn, light painting the dreary grey stone warmly, reflecting off the glass cases and covers and windows just enough to put spots in his nocturnal eyes if he looked long enough.  
  
He’d put a scratch in Lorna’s door the week before just so that he wouldn’t accidentally knock on the door of another’s sanctuary; though the majority of the rooms in this section were empty, being reserved for visiting clergy from other churches and monasteries or just the regular business man; they had legalities to jump through, after all.  
  
The alchemical mark was a bit tongue in cheek, but no one had noticed as of yet, so he was still safe.  
  
Sugar.  
  
There was something sweet hidden under that shell of terror and trauma.  
  
He knocked. He waited; no answer. He knocked again, and thankfully, he heard the tell-tale click of the bolt lock sliding back and the turn of the knob lock.  
  
The door swung open, and Lorna greeted him with an aura laden with undulating confusion, buzzing stress, thudding exhaustion. The bruised under-eye circles had come back full force, her cheeks crusted with tear tracks, hair flat and matted on one side, and she was still in the sweats she’d been wearing three days ago.  
  
“You look horrible!”  
  
Lorna’s mouth stretched into a flat line, “Wow, thanks, Earth. Not even a ‘good morning, freeloader’ for me?”  
  
He was glad she couldn’t see his face, because he knew with absolute confidence that his mouth was catching flies after timid, quiet Lorna had shot back so quickly. He quickly recovered. “Well, I would, but this morning you are going to commit a working sin with me-“  
  
“What does that-“  
  
“Just shhh,” He put his finger against her lips, praying she wouldn’t reflexively lick the digit like most of the Clergy did, “First, we need to get you ready for the day. You never know when Papa or Sister Elizabeth or even Omega might pop in for an inspection.” His finger went unmolested, and he happily got to work. 

He ignored the clear signs that she'd tried to sleep in the large bed positioned next to the door, the sheets smelling of night-terrors and absent of the thick top-sheet. A quick, cursory glance into the bathroom confirmed his suspicion. Bathtub. Well, at least she'd _tried_ to sleep in the bed.  
  
The Sisters, who had brought Lorna their hand-me-downs, had also had the foresight to steal a variation of the ghoul uniform, and though he was afraid to ask just who they had stolen it from, he was also grateful. Not enough to make him think he shouldn’t have been so quick to revenge against Sister Janice for her little 'welcoming' gift, but just enough to have him put a note in the back of his mind to drop off a mustard yellow scarf at the dorm she shared with Sister Haley.  
  
The coat sat a little lumpy on the shoulders, too broad in the chest, but just right around the waist and hips. The ill-fitting top didn’t matter much when he wrapped the broad cincture just over her ribs. The coat was unadorned, as was the cincture, and the pants hung low, thankfully covered by the modest length of the top-coat, but she looked presentable enough. She was mumbling something about being able to dress herself, but he was having none of that. The girl had been in obvious distress, so he was going to help her get ready for the day whether she liked it or not.   
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to wear the Habit?”  
  
Lorna looked up from rolling the cuffs of her pants up, and he made a note that sewing would be on her list of schooling when the days and nights became too cold to go outside. That way, she could alter the three coats, pants, and habits she'd been given to fit her better. “Yeah, I don’t like the feeling of my bare legs, and we’ll be working in the garden. If a breeze comes by, I don’t have any fat to keep warm.”  
  
He nodded, drawing back the thick, cream colored curtains, letting in the beloved dawn, “Your roses are doing _much_ better than they were!” And so was the plant he’d given her on the first night of her stay, but she didn’t need to know anything about that one yet. The lavender bed, however, was hopeless.  
  
Bright, full buds in deep burgundies and stained whites had begun to form along the thorny vines despite it being the start of December. Not a lot of snow fell in this part of Italy, the air only becoming slightly chilled, most plants slowing instead of dying, their little hums becoming more sluggish and sleepy. Crops had their seasons, sure, but flowers, herbs, and edible root plants were persistent fuckers.  
  
Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Lorna’s face noticeably light up in the reflection of her tiny vanity, “Oh! Yeah, the recipe you told me to put in the water really worked!”  
  
“Did you expect it to not?”  
  
“Well...“-she put down the hairbrush-“Nothing ever really goes right for me.”  
  
Earth was the grounded councilor, the steadfast rock. He was used to doubt, to the belief that if one started enjoying things too much, expected too much good, it would never come. “Well, you won’t have to worry about that if I can help it, grasshopper. Now let _me_ brush that rat’s nest, you’re doing it all wrong.” Water had the same issue with her curly ringlets; she had no idea how to brush it on the rare occasion that she had to.   
  
His skin had crawled with every rough tug she’d given her poor, abused scalp, but even as she hadn’t winced, obviously used to such treatment of herself, he was not. Her hair was so soft and silky after using the herbal oils he and Air had consulted on, treating their newest member like a doll, almost, pampering her nonexistent, feminine sensibilities, making teas and supplements to strengthen her body without her catching on. The church took care of their own, and she had quickly become that being in such bad shape when she'd first come here.  
  
“Is this your natural color? I don’t see your roots peeking through, so either you have very slow hair growth, or-well.”  
  
“No”, she hummed, sighing when the brush passed smoothly, gently over her head, “Its always been this color.” Bright, white blonde. Unnaturally white blonde. Almost angelic. Papa let her stay for a reason, sensing, or being privy to something the rest of them were not. Earth wouldn't question it; Papa had his reasons for everything he did.  
  
He set her brush down, steering her to the bathroom to wash face and teeth and-he took a short whiff-a little deodorant, perhaps. He didn't want to nag the blonde, but he was starting to think that Water was going to have to have a talk with her about taking regular showers. Their sprawling compound had no shortage of water, but he knew that old habits died hard. “Most people would kill for this color, you know that, right?”  
  
“I have been asked on more than one occasion to donate it, but I’ve never let it get close to that long.” It would be too easy to grab if she was trying to get away, then. Lorna had found herself in too many situations with grabbing hands and closed fists to risk it. When she was little, she would cut it herself, the aftermath choppy, looking more like she'd cut it with a chainsaw than a pair of safety scissors. At least she hadn’t had bangs, then.  
  
When she’d gotten old enough to pick up the step-stool so that she could reach the key her mom kept on a nail by the door, she would ask her mother’s pretty neighbor to cut it for her. The woman had usually obliged, probably feeling bad for her like most of the adults who had come in contact with her.

Lorna had loved sneaking over while her mother was gone; the lady was always dressed so nice, bright blue hair always coiffed to perfect, with heavy, dramatic makeup and sweet smelling perfume. To Lorna, she'd looked like a model straight off the runway, and she'd had so many fun boas and lipstick colors and rings that had been too big for her small, chubby fingers. She'd even give her snacks and tell her stories and put music on. Sometimes she wasn't able to go over, the woman leaving a do-not-disturb sign on the door so that she wouldn't barge in on her during a job. 

Lorna was sure, in the back of her mind, that the woman was Heaven sent, distracting a lonely, attention starved child simply because she wanted to. She wondered where she'd gone.  
  
The halls were completely empty, even after the whole fifteen minutes they had taken trying to make a little more presentable-even if she was going to be rolling around in the dirt-and an odd, calmed atmosphere was laying comfortably in the diminishing dim.  
  
Lorna was a horrible sneak, her too-large shoes slapping against the uncarpeted parts of the stone floor, but with Earth, they could have broken into the American National reserves and gotten away with it. As loud as the earth ghoul was vocally, his feet moved without stirring the wind, shrewd eyes keeping the two uncaught as his whip-tail swished behind him, curling around her wrist to tell her when  to stop, and when to hold her breath, until finally they were sprinting out of the cafeteria hall with shrieking laughs as an irate Sister of Sin chased behind them with a rolling pin, profanities screaming out of her broad mouth.  
  
Lorna was breathless, her body adjusting to spending the energy that she got from eating instead of keeping it in a little starvation pocket in her lower belly, but the grass was still soft enough in Earth’s domain for her to lie down comfortably, the ground cool and humming. The air was still heavy with the scents of fall, and Lorna found herself quickly falling in love with wherever the fuck they were. She hadn't thought to ask in between the chores and lessons and hearty meals, but she could make a healthy guess that it was somewhere in the Mediterranean given that the majority of Church inhabitants spoke either Italian, Greek, or Latin, the ghouls being the only exception with their oddly Swedish accents and demon tongue.

Earth had gathered a bundle of herbs after setting their sugary plunder down at the foot of a hollowed birch tree, and was set to quizzing her on their use, the ways they could be consumed, if they could be used in antibacterial pastes, and the like. Winter herbs were Earth’s first priority as Summer was still some months away; oregano, yarrow, Balm of Gilead, Willow, Mint, wild roses, skull cap, calendula and how to properly prepare them, etc. Lorna's brain was working a lot better than it had when she’d first dropped in, and her memory was sharpening, large pupils turning to pinpoints, revealing the unsettling light color of her irises as she recited what she had learned.  
  
Maybe one day, most likely soon, she would start figuring out her own little recipes. But, for now, he kept it simple as she pulled weeds from the cabbage bed, the morning dew soaking the cotton fabric covering knobby knees and shins through to her skin. Even though her arms shook if she picked up anything over ten pounds, Lorna had proven to be a hard worker, unsure when it came to new things, but willing to learn and work past any bodily pain or headaches it brought her.  
  
They had to stop so that he could bandage the calluses forming on the inner pads of her thumbs and palms, even though she’d never complained once about the rawness in the few days she’d been on garden duty. The sun sat high and fat in the Apex of the sky, and he could tell his pupil was slowing, sweat dampening her temples, curling fly-away baby hairs and the edges pf her shaggy bangs.  
  
1300 hours.  
  
“Here, try this one, it’s one of Air’s favorites, though, truthfully, the Sisters don’t make it quite as well as he does.”  
  
Lorna hadn’t ever been a big sweets person, but she indulged when she could, mostly left-overs from the Polish man at the bakery down the street from her, but this was fresh-even after six and a half hours-and tinted a dark blue at one end, some sort of fruit filling cooked into the sweet bread. She nibbled at a flaky corner, and Earth laughed at her, “Take a big bite out of it, come on, don’t be a wuss.”  
  
She stopped, then took a savage bite right into the long side of it, an explosion of flavors settling on her tongue.  
  
“See? Good isn’t it? Sometimes, when you plan to enjoy things, you can’t take it slowly.” Lorna was starting to think that she would die for Earth if he asked. He was fun and kind and he distracted her from the buzz in her skull with the constant flow of stimulating sensory input better than her anti-psychotics ever had. Then again, she hadn't exactly gotten those from a doctor after leaving her mother's house, so he actually knew what was in those dusty, white pills.  
  
“Enjoying yourselves?”  
  
Lorna whipped her head around, cheeks full of pastry, eyes wide as Earth stood to greet the much, much larger man. “Well, of course we are, Air, look at this spread!” The drummer gestured at their spot.

A familiar Sister of Sin followed behind the colossally tall ghoul, her auburn curls spilling out of her veil, giving her the same rebellious, nonchalant air she’d had when Lorna had first met her.  
  
She quickly swallowed the pastries half she’d stuffed into her mouth, wincing as it went down dry, giving the Sister a meek greeting of her own, “Good Afternoon, Sister Janice.”  
  
A snarl twisted the other woman’s tanned face so quickly that it almost had Lorna taking shelter behind Earth, but the snarl dropped as soon as it came with a sigh that deflated the Sister’s whole body.  
  
“ _Buongiorno_ , Lorna.” Her voice was still clipped, though.   
  
The blonde turned to the ghouls and noted the clear, sadistic satisfaction from Earth. He must have Sister Janice absolutely _whipped_. It was well known that the Sister had a mean streak a mile wide, every one of the younger initiate Sisters telling her to watch her back as the newest and youngest Clergy member. But, again, that couldn't be right. Brother Salem was eighteen, almost a whole five years younger than her. At some point, she was going to have to start correcting people. She was old enough to drink, for the Lord's sake!  
  
“Lorna?”  
  
_Air._  
  
“Yes, sir?” Earth chuffed behind her in amusement; he knew that Air was just too big for her to be comfortable around, standing so tall over her tiny body, but it wasn't the air ghoul's fault.   
  
Pupils dilating, slitting, widening, and assessing behind the thick resin of his mask, the mousy girl with hunched shoulders and a visibly, though slightly, distended belly, the fat in her body not quite ready to produce, and just getting used to eating fully. There was also a more healthy scent about her; the sickliness of coming death, black mold, and ammonia all faded away, letting color flood back into her ashen skin. He and Earth’s recipes seemed to be doing an adequate enough job repairing the lung damage from the black mold spores, revitalizing her malnourished body slowly but surely. “Sister Janice is here to escort you to Papa Emeritus.  
  
Papa. The painted demon. The disarming, hellish preacher who radiated the passion of earthly delights and the grace of opulence. He was, unfortunately for Lorna, unbearably attractive. A terror. An unknown, his forked tongue and deadly fangs appearing more often than not as she dreamed. Given her dream the night before, however, she wished that that had been the case again. He either distracted her night-visions or had put an actual protection over her, she wasn't sure. They hadn't even interacted since the morning of her fake trial.  
  
The little girl in the back of her mind cowered and cried.  
  
“Sure thing, I’ve been wanting to talk to him”- _No, she hadn’t_ -“for a little while, now."

* * *

  
  
The two ghouls watched as Janice and Lorna set out of the gardens at a brisk pace, the redhead-so full of jealousy and malevolence-no doubt wanting to be rid of the girl as fast as possible from her presence. Janice liked being paid attention, loved being in the center of it, siphoned energy from energizing people as a socialite, and was often on tours because of it as a spokesperson, and she just couldn’t stand all the attention the newest member got.  
  
“And what was that about?”  
  
“What was what about? I have no idea what you could _possibly_  mean, oh love of mine.” The taller man drew close at the term of endearment, knocking the horns of his mask against those of his long-time lover’s affectionately.  
  
“You awful Imp, you know what I mean. Sister Janice is a hateful little woman.” Those huge hands settled on his hips, their heat soaking through to his skin. Air never meant to come onto him most times that they touched, but it just felt so good, so right, that Earth found himself jumping his quiet boyfriend’s bones more often than not. Air never seemed to mind though, always welcoming the drummer with open arms and a hot mouth.  
  
He leaned into that broad chest with a sigh “I told you about how she left a little present for our runt, yes?”  
  
The larger ghoul nodded.  
  
“You also know that I was the one who triggered it”, Air gave Earth a look that told him everything the other was unwilling to say. “It’s okay, I know I stank for a few days afterward.” The drummer patted the keyboardist on the chest. Even _he_  wouldn’t have wanted to sleep with himself with the way that horrible sewage smell had clung to every pore in his body. _Thank Lucifer below that it had only lasted two days._  
  
Earth hummed, a pleased noise rising in his throat at the fond memory he had of Sister Imperator’s thunderous face when he’d first relayed the information out of pure spite. “Well, I know that she was having a slew of wonderfully carnal, sinful escapades in Sister Imperator’s office with visiting officials, and I guess she thought I was bluffing, but...” He walked his fingers up the row of polished buttons in front of him with each word, playing with the one at clasped at the dip of the air ghoul’s throat.  
  
“You didn’t!” Air could be frustratingly unaffected, at times. No hint of arousal was in the atmosphere, nothing settling so sweetly on the back of his tongue.  
  
Earth giggled, nonetheless, “I did, and I am almost one hundred percent _sure_ that her Highness kicked some ass.” He turned blue eyes, inspecting the little area he and Lorna had been working in, bits of herbs, upturned soil, and the remains of their stolen pastries bringing a slight smile to life underneath his mask. “Anyway, what does Papa want with her?”  
  
The air ghoul moved forward, releasing Earth from his embrace, and set to picking up some of the books lying on the ground, dusting off their covers of invisible dust, “It didn’t sound serious, so our best bet would be social. You can never be too sure with _this_  Emeritus, howev-“ The sentence was cut off with a sharp yelp, Air twisting mid-flinch to face the culprit, tomes held tightly to his chest, one hand going down to smack over his ass cheek in a protective reflex. “Earth, we are in the open!”  
  
“That’s never stopped us before, and besides, I just couldn’t _resist_ , you were bent over so _nicely_.” There, a hint of it on the breeze. Earth let his pleasure with himself bleed into his visible body language.  
  
The looming ghoul stalked forward, invading the other’s space, dark eyes blazing, blackening, boring into the earth ghoul with a wretched sort of familiarity, “I think that, maybe, you’ve forgotten something, _brat_.” Air shot a clawed hand forward to wrap around Earth’s throat, tail cracking like a whip against the other’s thighs. “I’m the one who puts _you_  on your hands and knees.”


	5. Old Halls and Beady Eyes???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorna is taken up by the whirlwind Sister Janice, and y'all get an awkward meeting????? Two awkward meetings??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> papa came out funky he's a mindset that is hard for me to get into without exposing myself as actually pretty nasty and the ghouls continue to be fun to write

Whipped, Sister Janice might have been, but Lorna wasn’t going to get her hopes up. The redhead’s reputation for viciousness and volatility kept the skinny blonde on edge, prepared to get jumped by a gaggle of gossipy soccer moms, even despite the fact that Air had delivered the Nun himself and congregation members were not allowed in most parts of the sprawling compound because the majority of it was either private housing, light-sensitive libraries and reliquaries, offices, or small enclaves for meetings. The main gardens were open to the public for meditation, but they had to have a clergy member present.

 At this church location, the clergy didn’t have to worry much about crazies coming into their sacred spaces as most congregation goers were locals from the surrounding villages or world leaders, but Earth had told her that other locations had a huge issue with vandals and desecrators.

  _Annoying_ , he’d said, _but fair_. The Christian church burning incidents had fueled a vengeful wave of Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox alike, even though the burnings weren’t affiliated or related to the Church of Ghost. Lorna didn’t quite agree with him, but had kept silent as the ghoul spoke. It wasn’t a very Christianly thing to do to demand an eye for an eye. Defense, sure, she’d cut enough men to know. Revenge, not so much.

 There was probably more to the church than just what she’d been told, but her teachers either hadn’t thought to tell her because it wasn’t important, or it was legitimately secret. Lorna had been told that no knowledge would be kept from her curiosity, but she also knew that a statement like that was usually bound in red tape and cloaked in deceit. She hadn’t survived this long by being naive.

 Sister Janice made no move to speak to her as they walked, keeping a surprisingly brisk pace for the short length of her legs, a trait that the two women shared in common; so Lorna did the same. They didn’t have to be friends-something Lorna was appreciative of-they just had to be civil. The girl wasn’t confrontational in nature, anyway.

 Lorna watched the ends of Janice’s red hair, the long strands peeking out from the edge of her veil, sway as she speed-walked, her hard-heeled Mary Jane style shoes clicking against wood stairs and runners, shuffling over the carpeted spaces, the hem of her habit swishing wildly around her stockinged ankles, the ring of keys and herb pouches at her waist clinking against each other. _Clink, clink, clinking of chains rattling against each other as the linked rope is slammed into the floor again again again-_

The Pale woman popped her thumb, taking to studying their surroundings instead of the broad set of the sister’s hips.

The halls had bled into something far older and shadowed than the wing she had stayed in for the past two weeks. The style here more closely resembled that of the chapel; heavy stone stained with centuries-old candle smoke, the thick burgundy runners of the other halls thinning, turning to embroidered strips of woven threads. The windows were barred, tall enough to reach the exposed rafters, and thin, only letting in slivers of light.

The smell changed from the lavender cleaning solution the clergy used to musky, laden with the smell of burning herbs soaked into the porous stone and fluttering tapestries, the ancient fabrics hanging in between the windows cut from stone.

Lorna had never been very good at projecting her spirit to call the attention of others, so she’d never been good at detecting other entities, either. But, there was no doubt that Morningstar had an active hand in this Church of proud sinners, and his image and message and symbol were _everywhere_. He was the one angel that her guardian had never said much on; the answers always dodgy or the subject quickly changed.

She’d given up eventually. If the angel didn’t want to talk about their fallen brother, she wouldn’t expect him to.

Some of the tapestries matched a style that Jegudiel had shown her when she was small; figures all in woven rows, waving palm leaves and offerings to a horned giant in a throne.

They would sit in a pocket separate from her reality, safe from her mother, for hours at a time, the angel showing her as much as they dared without frightening or overwhelming her child’s mind. Abrahamic history, art and idols of the fertile crescent, the wrath and mercy of God through the angel’s eyes, a woman tempted by a snake, kind men on great boats, old world ziggurats, a mass of singing, bone-tired freedmen marching through a desert to a promised land of milk and honey, and letting her small hands and wide, pale eyes study the armor they wore and weapons they carried in relation to the memories they showed her.

It had all been so intriguing and lively and fascinating, and a welcome respite from a cold, empty home and violent visions, and though Jegudiel had made it clear that, while they’d never felt one way or the other about humanity, they’d found them as interesting and wonderful as Lorna had found Jegudiel to be.

She could still remember the soft give of the ugly Hanukkah sweaters the angel would morph their heavenly armor into, the secure grip of ever-changing arms, young and unmarred, wrinkled by sun, missing fingers, having extra fingers.

Nothing about the angel was constant if they didn’t focus on a particular look, but even then, their appearance was more influenced by their wealth of conflicting, powerful emotions. The starlight voids of their sockets and thick, dark brown curls were the only things that did not change; six wings turning to eight, then to two, thousands of eyes laid into the appendages opening and closing and floating freely and disappearing.

Just thinking about her old, inconsistent guardian made her angry. _Where had they been after she’d left her mother’s house as an adult? Where had they been when she’d needed them most? Why were Theistic Satanists taking better care of her than they ever had?_

A small voice screamed in the back of her head at every tapestry woven in opposite to her baptism _Sacrilege, Sacrilege, Sacrilege!_ , but she quickly swallowed it down. Sacrifices in blood, in sex, of men and animals alike, the glory of the Adversary; it shook her to her core.

Lorna wanted to believe she was here for a reason. These people had been nothing but kind to her, had given the starving woman clothing and a room and food and a multitude of jobs. Two weeks and she was thriving, her stomach protruding a little bit as it adjusted to large quantities of food, making it easier to fit on the smallest pair of pants she’d been loaned.

Just because they followed the Adversary didn’t mean she could shit on them, even in her mind.

It was rude.

Sister Janice made a left turn at the end of the hallway where it branched off into a T, leading the heaven-kissed woman down a much shorter hallway bare of doors and windows, the way being lit by wall sconces. A thick, engraved door was set into the wall at the end, a tarnished silver Grucifix hanging above the frame, set in darkly stained wood.

Smoke drifted up from the sconces to the high rafters above, curling in the wind, around the ancient, cracked beams, kissing the shadowy void of the ceiling. Eyes peered at her from the dark.

She looked away.

Janice came to a standstill at the door, as tall as the two of them if one was stacked on top of the other and wide enough that two of Janice with her wide hips would easily fit without any bumping.

“I hate that the papal rooms are in this wing. It’s so fucking _creepy_. The torches are always lit, the air is stupidly heavy, and it takes forever to get here.”

Janice’s voice sounded strange where there had only been silence before, interspersed by the whistle of the wind against the windows and occasional scuffing noises in the rafters above them.

“The older ghouls hang out in the rafters and watch people as they go by. Did you hear them? **Because I hope that they can hear me now and know that I don’t appreciate being watched like this**.” One moment Janice wouldn’t talk to her, and now this? “Anyway, knock on the door and he should ask you to enter. A ghoul will drop down from their hiding place and lead you back from the higher up’s halls. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and goodbye.”

_Is this what whiplash feels like?_

Lorna was alone, the Sister somehow walking even faster than she had before without going into a dead sprint, the click of her heels fading away into the carpeted flooring.

The blonde could feel herself start to shake, hands grasping for a cigarette carton she hadn’t indulged in for months. She took a breath and popped her other thumb. She was here, and she probably wouldn’t be able to find her way back to somewhere she recognized, so she figured might as well push onwards.

Her knuckles-dry and cracked from the cold and from the work she’d readily thrown herself into-were rapping against the door before she could stop herself, and the response was almost immediate, except Emeritus didn’t ask her to come in, the demon opened the door himself, greeting her with the hint of a smile on unpainted lips, mismatched eyes holding her’s in trance. Slit pupils rounding fast enough that, had she not been paying so close attention, her hypervigilance catching the slightly unshaven look about him, the magic sensitive girl probably wouldn’t have noticed. But she did. She very much noticed his attempt to soften his appearance for her.

Masks were a terrifying thing; Emeritus wore his out of courtesy and, perhaps, vanity. Much different from the blonde’s mother; an unassuming outside covered her ugly, twisting insides so well that the woman wondered if even God had known the extent of her dam’s wickedness.

“That was rather quick of Sister Janice, though it isn’t surprising. She’s been walking on eggshells for some time, now, for the debauchery of Imperator’s offices. Follow me, little one.” The line of his back was difficult for Lorna to draw her gaze from, paranoia eating at her brain, but she managed it half-way.

The reason there had been no windows on the walls of the hallway were most likely because previous Papas had not wanted anyone to peep in on them in their private life, and because someone, some innumerable number of years ago, had had the foresight to fortify the structure of this wing to last the ages. Instead of there being a ridiculously delicate walkway, the hall actually broke the papal apartments into halves, two rooms on either side and a foyer when one first walked in.

It was spacious, homely, and warm, a fire roaring steadily behind a large mahogany desk, the light playing off the various glass paned cabinets lining the walls. It was day, yet thick, burgundy curtains were drawn closed. She hoped he hadn’t just woken up. She didn’t want to be an inconvenience.

Lorna sighed as the hot air settled over her exposed skin, calming the gooseflesh from the chilly hallways. The ghoul uniform was warm in the sun, the black fabric heating up quickly enough so that her bone-thin body wouldn’t turn purple, but some parts of the church were just so _damn_ cold.

“Take a seat across the desk, if you will.” A naked palm gestured towards a plush seat facing the fire, and though she didn’t want to seem excited about sitting in an obviously comfy chair, she did quicken her ambling pace to relieve the pressure on her shins from standing for so long.

He sauntered over, the soles of his shoes silent save for the sound carpet makes when the fibers are pushed down, and leaned his weight against the side of his desk. “I’m sorry if I’ve pulled you away from something, dear child, but I thought that now would be as best a time as any to check in, as it were, on your studies, chores, how you are liking your room...” No move was made to the large, black leather, wingback chair across from her, obviously at ease in his silky button-up and dress pants, a burgundy robe draped over his shoulders. Hair ungelled, raven locks falling across his forehead.

He was trying to set an informal, friendly vibe, but it was only part way working.

Power rolled off of his slim shoulders in uncontrollable waves, every slow inhale and exhale washing over her as the heat had when she’d first stepped in. But this was pervasive, grabbing onto her flesh with phantom hands, keeping her in place.

“It’s-It’s wonderful, _thank you_ for letting me stay. It is-” Lorna could barely choke out a single sentence, plump lips slightly pursed in frustration, light brows pinching together. She didn’t try to say anything else, her throat closing and opening rapidly in a growing unrest.

Papa gave her a soft smile-full of hidden fangs and strong jaws and a forked tongue, Lorna never once forgetting that he was likely predator-his hands fiddling with a pen on the edge of the desk, eyes trained intensely on her’s. “I am very _pleased_. From what I hear, you are not a big talker, so ‘wonderful’ is heartwarming. I am afraid, my dear, that I did not ask you here to simply check in on how you were enjoying your studies, though that is part of it.” He got up, smooth limbs seeming to swim through the air as he moved, coming to a stand behind her chair, hands gripping the back of the seat. “The Church’s dispater predecessor and alma mater think you a child. _I_ , however, know otherwise. Children have a very different smell from adults, but I suppose you were too nervous to correct anyone, hm?”

She bit her cheeks hard enough to taste blood.

“I will not turn you away for this, though. You may not be a child as the higher-ups believe, but you _are_ quite the special girl, little Lorna.” Tension bled from her shoulders but stayed in the pit of her belly. “You reek of Heaven, but your mind screams of Hell. I know what haunts you, dear girl.”

A muscle in her neck jumped, her face devoid of any expression. “I don’t know what you mean-"

Hands curled over her shoulders, the bare skin and unfiltered heat sending her nerves screaming, the pad of his thumb against her pulse, “I can feel how your heart _races_ , and I can _taste_ your fear.” A lead weight dropped in her stomach. She was in the company of a damned incubus. The hum of his energy engulfing the air around her, tasting her ever-present terror, her turmoil, the crashing horror of her human emotionality.

 _Oh Lord, please let him not be hungry_.

“You have nothing to worry from _me_ , sweet girl; I ask you to simply enjoy the life you are beginning here amongst the followers of your soul’s adversary.” A hiss, the pass of his snake’s tongue through his lips, tasting the air. The woman found herself hoping to God that the dark pope had the fortitude to not feed on her.

Those long fingers dug into her clavicle a little as he squeezed, and something took flight from her chest, dive bombing into a motion in the pit of her gut. Hot breath past the shell of her ear, strong pulse, hammering heart, all coming together in an echoing cacophony that was beginning to grow- _the room around her changing, morphing into different designs, different furnitures, searing purples and pulsing greens and violent reds, all undulating like the surface of the ocean, the stench of dozens of separate entities dousing her in vibrating hues. The hands on her shoulders grew in size, the blunt nails turning to thick talons, the breath against the nape of her neck deepening-_

Everything snapped back into focus with a shake and the phantom brush of hands over her mind.

“We’re going to have to do something about that. I’d imagine it isn’t too fun for you.” She shook her head slightly, still reeling, panting, as the pope’s physical fingers tangled in the hairs that had come loose from her messy, barely-there braid.

Earth, with all his tactile talents, could not braid for shit, Water was busy on a trip to a neighboring village, and Lorna’s hair had always been too short to braid, so she’d never tried.

Lorna sat as still as she could, expecting something to shut down against her will, but the pleasant feeling never changed or faded. It felt nice having gentle fingers in her hair, similar to when Earth had brushed it out for her that morning, but the device was warm palms tugging gently on her scalp, and there was less detangling than making the mess worse.

Even having body heat standing at her back wasn’t as stressful as usual.

_Damned Incubus._

“Are you feeding off of me right now?” The tense set of her body was loosening the longer he played with her hair, now completely freed from the knotted braid she and Earth had tried to figure out, unfamiliar warmth glowing in her belly and chest as her eyes became half-lidded and content.

“Maybe a little.” He tugged at one of her ends hard enough to move her listless head to the side. “You are just _full_ of turmoil, sweetling, I hope you don’t mind if I take a bit of the edge off for you.” The vision had been stopped, but the hyper-awareness stayed. This time, it was oddly lax, the usual nausea not accompanying the use of her third-eye ability.

She hummed, practically purring, body sinking down into the creaking leather as Emeritus leached the blonde’s negative miasmas. Their newest member was a soft, starving thing in more ways than just physical. She hurt to her core. Her soul was tainted and blessed in equal measures, obviously touched by an angel of high power, but her origins were full of the influence of the Inferno.

It hurt him to feel it on the level of humanity he had been created with, a deep line forming between his brows as he thought,  but delighted as it sated his hunger.

Pale eyes, only a little more grey than pale, milky white, slid up to look at him, deep shadows painting the hollows of her thin face, flickering firelight and dim, centuries-old bulbs overhead making her appear knife sharp. Whip thin. But, he noticed, the girl was much more lively than she had been when he first felt her spirit waver in the nave.

“You have a lovely color to your cheeks, I see. My ghouls _must_ be treating you well”- a bluntly tipped finger made a path under the curve of her jaw-”Eyes bright, the rattle in your chest gone, hair smooth”- the words supplemented with hot palms smoothing over her throat, over her unruly hair; palms which were weakly pushed away.

“Stop that!” Bright scarlet painted her cheeks and chest, hands coming up to slap against the sides of her jaw where Emeritus’ own hands had been.

“Oh? What’s this? Is our girl _bashful?_ ”

He laughed at the high noise she made in her throat. _Cute thing._

“No! _Don’t-_ I’m sorry, sir, I _-_ “ Compliments and flattery were hard to process.

It wasn’t surprising to Emeritus, the demon general not even batting an eyelash. He’d been around a long, long time, and had met many, many people. Especially in this day and age, positive attention would make even the most hardass of humans sputter, heat coloring the highs of their cheeks.

“Please, sweet girl, it’s Papa.” He pat her shoulder, stepping away from the shy woman, already building a plan to break her walls down. If she stayed scared, terrified of herself, he would consider it a failure of his position.

His ghouls were soft on the weak, and he couldn’t deny that he wasn’t the same, albeit partly because they were full to the brim of volatile emotions. dripping with deliciously explosive repression. His ghouls would never push, sensitive to the raw feelings the blonde put off, afraid of pushing too far, trained well as deacons and guides and pastors.

Emeritus was not. He consumed energies; he knew the exact brink of _too far._

“I’m going to put on a kettle, and we’ll talk a bit more about your studies; break the air a little bit, as you Americans say. Would you like that?”

Pale eyes arrested him from where he stood across the room, sure hands already preparing the tea. No choice; it would be rude to refuse, the obvious desire to know her in the way he knew his congregation. _Hopefully not_ **_just_ ** _like his congregation_ , the woman thought to herself. Lorna may have only been a resident of the church for two weeks as of now, but gossip was treated as a blood sport in this church and without the whispered conspiracy of an Evangelical setting.

“I’d like that very much, Papa.” The soft smile-further gentling the strong set of his human mask, gathering endearing crows feet at the corners of those mismatched eyes, and the thought of broad fangs and forked tongues and talons didn’t quite seem so bad-the demon sent her loosened the rest of her tension. Lorna began to think that she might come to like being in the incubus’ presence. He ate her ever-present terror and melancholy and rage, and the feeling was not altogether unpleasant.

And, oh, unearthly legions, where were the angels when a demon so easily ensnared the heaven-kissed woman with respect, kindness, and an easy smile. 

* * *

While Emeritus and Lorna shared steaming cups of tea, the former preening like a peacock as he drew shy giggles and excited, colorful retellings of the things that his guest had obviously been overjoyed by-shenanigans with Earth and a reluctant Water, the herbs she and Earth had planted for the winter, books she had read while working in the libraries with Air, passing a stern Omega in the hall only for Earth to trip up the much, much larger ghoul with his long tail, a story that had Papa springing a tear or two-the ghouls sat around the perimeter of a dark mahogany table, many of the seats empty, lights low, masks removed, the infamous coverings set haphazardly in the middle of the broad width.

Omega was leaned on his elbows, a crinkled sheet of paper held taut in his broad palms. “He wants us to _what_?”

“Hunt down the mother. The missive was pretty clear, brother mine. You wouldn’t happen to be going senile would you-OW! _Water_ that _hurt_!” The somber air was broken. Shattered. Annihilated by the resident trickster.

“As it should, now shut up, Alpha, it’s time for business, not jokes.”

The quintessence ghoul shot out of his seat, the legs squealing against the wood panel flooring.

All five cringed back from the noise, ears flattening against the sides of their skulls, tails jerking, predator mouths set, molars grinding against the other.

“This is a pacing issue? How is this a pacing issue-” Alpha found himself cut off by a firm smack to the back of his head, a raging growl building in his chest. “What the _fuck_ was that for, Earth!”

“It’s not related to this, that was about the bucket of water leading into the Sister’s wing and framing me. Sister Haley thought it was me and now I’m in trouble with Sister Imperator, you son of a fuck-”

 _“SHUT._ **_UP.”_ **

Earth slumped back in his seat with a pout. He hated it when Omega yelled, and he didn’t care if he looked like a brat with his arms crossed.  Air sat beside him, thankfully, and indulged the smaller ghoul with a reassuring palm on his partner’s knee.

Meetings with the five of them together without Papa were always chaotic; Omega’s more neurotic, high-strung side emerging full force, Earth and Alpha egging each other on as Earth played footsie with Air, Water trying desperately to mediate and settle tempers. They’d been doing this for centuries at this point, however, and it was unlikely that any of them were going to change.

“I don’t get it, what is so damn _important_ about this little girl?”-About face-”Emeritus has _always_ trusted my judgment.”-About face-”Even his brothers who came before him!”-About face-”He’s hiding something.”-About face-”Is he in league with the Angels-”

The other four all shot up straight in their seats, postures defensive, fangs bared.

“Now, hold on a fucking second-”

“What the _fuck,_ Omega-”

 “Papa would _never_ -”

 “Everyone pipe down! Shut the fuck up and sit the _fuck_ down, we aren’t newborns toddling about anymore!” Water gestured to the chair Omega had previously abused,  the fiery look in her eyes telling him that the water ghoul’s tempestuous temper was at its end. “If you sit down and calm yourself, you know that Papa has more reason than most to revile angels. He is also supremely loyal; if he is keeping something from us, it is for a good reason in his opinion. For now-and wipe that smug ass look off your face, Alpha-let’s find the bitch that terrorized our honored guest. Maybe through this, we’ll get a few clues as to why Papa is hiding the facts from us.

 “Until, then, however, keep your wits and tempers about you and get your sour asses down to the car.” The scar cutting up from Omega’s top lip twisted as he frowned. He still didn’t like it. He’d always hated being out of the loop.

 “Wait, right now?” At some point without the others noticing, Earth had climbed into Air’s lap, and Alpha choked at change, making him doubt if Earth had been sitting in the air ghoul’s lap the whole time or if he’d actually sat in his chair since they'd begun. “What about Lorna?”

 They all paused, even Alpha and Omega who didn’t have lessons or daily activities with the woman.

 “Are we just going to leave her here with Sister Imperator?”

 “Oh, Satan fucking _Christ_ , I hope not. Maybe Papa will watch her?”

“Fat chance, Alpha, also don’t fucking swear. Unholy _Lord_ , she’s gonna be scrubbing silver for a week…”

 Omega piped in, “We don’t all have to go; he asked a minimum two. I suggest Alpha and I, as Water just got back from an away trip, and the... _guest..._ knows you three best. Alpha and I would be less emotionally involved when we _do_ find the hag.”

 It wasn’t an easy thing to agree on. Demons are of a more vengeful nature as creatures of vice and sin, and the three who would be left behind were chomping at the bit for the chance to terrorize and destroy.

 They eventually conceded, saving Lorna from Sister Imperator’s strict care by staying, seeing Alpha and Omega disappear in clouds of smoke, raven feathers, and a small pile of human molars. No one ever could figure out why Alpha dropped those when he transported, but it had, at least, made for a fun pile of objects to leave in odd places.


	6. Hehe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We out Here,,,,,Travelling,,,,ponderin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright listen I had an idea for this that was about ten times as long as what I'm putting out right now but then I thought oh boy this is too much so this might be a little short and there was a delay because I could NOT for the life of me do anything timely thank u for reading

_Inner Chicago, 2400 Hours, November 30th._  
  
“I forgot how much I fucking hated the cold.”  
  
“Well, kicking at crumbled concrete isn’t going to change the temperature, Omega.”  
  
The quintessence ghoul shot his companion a searing glare, stubbornly kicking a concrete chunk out of a nearby barrier.  
  
“Omega! That’s public property!”  
  
A snarl curled his lip, twisting the faint scar racing over his upper lip to his septum, blue eyes shining reflectively in the flickering light of the street lamp. They’d been sent out from the church with the bare-fucking-minimum of information, and if there was one thing Omega hated more than sorting bills and taking out the trash, which was not his duty despite what Sister Imperator thought, it was being in a lack of knowledge.  
  
He felt a tick in his jaw. Oh, he was _not_  going to let Emeritus get away with this one.  
  
They didn’t even have the girl’s last name to have a starting point! They’d been given a lock of hair to follow a scent trail, but Omega and Alpha were not as known for their incredible senses of smell as, say, Papa or Earth.  
  
Even worse than Water and that was saying something because Water could not smell anything for the life of her. Well, actually, perhaps not /that/ bad. Earth and Papa could follow trails ancient enough that they were barely murmurs on the wind. Air was proficient, as well, just not as insanely fine-tuned.  
  
Omega was tempted to transport his ass back home, consequences be damned, and shake their Pontifus until he croaked. Patience was a virtue, but Omega was a being of hell-fire and aether, not a human, and his tolerance was quickly wearing thin. “I have every right to take out my anger on public property unless you want me taking it out on _you_ , Brother.”  
  
Alpha put his hands up, emerging claws splayed pleadingly. He really didn’t want to get thrown around right now, he was still healing from their last away mission. “Woah, alright! Omega, you need to calm down, you don’t think straight when you’re frustrated. Just-“ he rubbed the back of his head, putting his arms back down to his sides, hands shoved deep into his pockets “-Just breathe, ok, I need you sharp, not like a raging bull just because Papa is being cryptic and Water yelled at you.”  
  
“I-I am _not_  angry because Water yelled at me!” The obvious, mauve flush bleeding into his cheeks told the fire ghoul otherwise, but he kept his tongue to himself as the other let black creep up his arms, under his chin, the tips of his ears lengthening, eyes changing to be more suitable to the dark. _Boy_ , was he all worked up. Omega was an individual with an immense amount of weight on his shoulders as the head quintessence ghoul, and while Alpha understood the root of every lashing remark, it didn't mean he took it quite as well as someone like Air would.

He tried his best, though.  
  
“Then why are you all keyed up and defensive? Every Papa we’ve ever been under has always been cryptic, so you should be used to it by now.”  
  
“Well, maybe I’m fucking tired of it.”  
  
Alpha looked Omega straight in the eye, the former chewing the inside of his lip as he thought. Alpha was not an obedient creature; it just had never been in his nature. Omega wanted to please. He was quintessence, the binding essence of the five of them on top of being a Head Deacon in the church to hundreds of other quintessence ghouls and congregation members. If he lost his way, it was very likely that their energies-the five of them- would be unstable, making it hard for them to stay on Earth wholly without having bits and pieces of themselves, shades and shadows, roaming other dimensions of existence.  
  
It was not a pleasant feeling.  
  
Other ghouls could get away with it, their energies low enough that some of them had even been born on the earthly plane or had been summoned through a corpse like in days of old. The five closest to the Pope...not so much.  
  
“You know what? Before we start hunting this bitch, I’ll call Water to see if she can’t weasel any more information out of our little angel baby, and then we’ll get fucking _sloshed_.” Omega pursed his lips, though a tiny bit of mirth danced in his eyes.  
  
“Yeah, and have migraines for a week? No thank you. I’ve seen what happens when you drink, brother-mine, and I am _not_  interested in being that fucked up _ever._ ”  
  
“Oh, it’s not _that_  bad-“  
  
Omega slapped his palm over the fire ghoul’s mouth, ignoring and pushing away the shiver of revulsion wracking his spine when the other’s tongue licked the rough skin of his hand, “Just. Text. Water.”  
  
“Jeez, ok, _Square_.”  
  
“You have actually nothing to be pouting about, Alpha, think of me keeping you from your destructive fun as a way to get us back home as soon as we can be so that you can have uninhibited fun where doctors who can treat you in an emergency are.”  
  
The fire ghoul snorted, flicking his tongue over his lower lip, curling it over the increasingly jagged maw of his mouth, and set to sending a quick message to Water, then spamming her with the same message over and over with different emphasises; letters spaced wide, italicized, bolded, along with three emails, two voice messages, and a text sent over to her old IMVU account that she had paid him to stay silent about.  
  
“Request sent, Square demon.”  
  
“Oh, fuck _off_ , it’s too cold for this.”  
  
A cop car passed them by slowly, the driver looking less like a cop, and more like something that _could_  have been a cop if one didn’t look too closely. The duo decided, conclusively, to squat in the darkest ally they could find, letting small bits of their disguises fall away as they waited for Water to get back to them.  
  
Alpha would whip at Omega’s stomach and thighs, the other slapping him clear across the titty in an effort to make him _stop_ , but it didn’t work. Alpha was a restless individual, and, like Earth, could not sit still for very long.  
  
It was around 0500 hours that Alpha felt a flux in Omega’s energy; a burning question.  
  
“What?”  
  
“ _Our_  angel baby? You haven’t even spoken to her yet, except for those bruises you gave her on her upper arm.”

"It has actually been an entire hour since I said that."

"Alpha."  
  
“ _Oh_ , come on, you can’t deny she’s cute!”  
  
“Yeah, in the same way a drowned rat is.”  
  
Alpha scrunched his nose, “Papa and the others seem to like her just well.”  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause she’s a _spy_  and they’re _soft_.”  
  
Alpha let it drop, but he did wonder why Omega was so quick to come on the investigation if he was so suspicious of the tiny girl. Why hadn’t he stayed at the church to keep a closer eye?  
  
It wasn’t until the blazing sun, the Ozone stripped and the air hazy with poisonous gases, rose on the east horizon that Water got back to them, their wildly different timezones affecting their communication effectiveness with Water being one of the only ghouls that slept at reasonable hours for reasonable lengths of time.  
  
/ _Your target’s last name is Draven. Lower Chicago area, near coastline._ /  
  
The hunt was on.  
  
But before the hunt was on they needed their hands on some public records.  


* * *

  
  
_Unknown Location, Mediterranean Area, 1100 hours. December 1st._  
  
Emeritus had always been close to his older brother.  
  
They had spent hundreds of years as an inseparable, _frighteningly_ powerful duo, toppling governments with their sway, influencing the course of human history to end the way it should.  
  
The way it was foretold.  
  
He often wondered how much of history was theirs solely, and how much was actually in the Godhead’s plan.  
  
The thought always left a bitter taste on his tongue, and he always got to thinking a bit too deeply when he was left alone, making him feel heavy. Weak.   
  
The brothers were good at what they had done, too; having control over dozens of Hellish legions together. Durante Alessio and Apollon, commanding wrath and ruin, giving the powerful, established mortal the false comfort of Satan’s cloak, then ripping it away and watching all their wealth and riches come tumbling down as they cowered in their nakedness.  
  
Very few ever stayed in their dark lord’s turbulent favor, and even fewer still commanded his attention when, so often, it was directed towards Heavenly meddling and ‘Angelic’ intervention. Meaning that he took the mask of his uncorrupted form every now and then and walked the earth unseen, taking a direct hand in human sin.  
  
It had been fun for the brothers sadistic as they were kind; the game of temptation and lust and indulgence and the amusing, terrible, fiery downfall of their latest, prideful and greedy victim.  
  
Good things never seem to last for the likes of them, though.  
  
“Do you think she knows?”  
  
It was odd, now, even to hear his voice. They had commiserated, reconnected back in the sixties, but there was still something broken. Something irreparable. His brother was not the same.  
  
He couldn’t say he was the person he once was, either.  
  
“I think that she has a small understanding. And how could she not?” He stepped away from the window-the ancient glass, older even than this physical body entrapping his damned soul-overlooking the gardens below. “Come and look at her, feel her energy. She is not completely ignorant. Her own soul is aware, and angels have terribly loose tongues, after all.”  
  
His brother’s taller form materialized from the shadows, the stench of pagan fires-sizzling flesh, boiling blood-and rich perfumes following him, charred feathers falling softly against the floor, turning to scatterings of ash as they met the myrrh infused carpet. One pale eye, something that all three of them-the eldest missing; a hole in the trinity of beings crafted from timeless chaos, the churning fires below-had shared, reflecting the light back to him in a tapetum lucidum green. “You are making me nervous, Alessio...something in your tone...”  
  
“Gah, just come and see, ninny!”  
  
The elder looked down his hawkish nose to the wintertime garden below, catching sight of a shock of white. White hair, deathly pale skin, small frame crouched under thick brush, a masked ghoul hunting her on all fours, a tail tipped with thick spikes whipping behind him to keep his balance when she took footed flight.  
  
Earth. He recognized the ghoul from years before...  
  
The demon focused himself, shaking off the memories he held so tightly, projecting his spirit-writhing and twisted and dripping with unnatural poison-and molding it into the form of phantom palms and seeking fingers. Screaming, crying, sobbing energy pulsing and ebbing and choking. Heaving sighs, buzzing terror, even as a smile cut that pretty little face in two, eyes bright with glasslike joy as her heart thundered, breath heaving as her malnourished body ran and ran and ran, the spike of adrenaline as her hunter caught her mid-air around the waist and swung her around, the fizzling pop of the after-excitement.  
  
His brow rose.  
  
“Chaotic.”  
  
“Still so very _cryptic_ , I see. Tell me what you think, and try to steer clear of one-word replies, yes?”  
  
Emeritus let smug satisfaction leak into his aura when he felt a twinge of irritation from the other. Apollon had always had an easy temper to incite, though perhaps it hadn’t always been so terrible as it was now.  
  
“Brat.”  
  
The smirk was clear on the other’s face-stern mouth uplifted, the crows feet at his eyes deepened by the poorly lit room-so Emeritus knew he meant it affectionately. “But! You love me, still.”  
  
“Only sometimes, Fratellino...” the elder’s face dropped, and he sighed, something physical billowing off his shoulders as he thought, hands twisting an expensive pair of leather gloves to cracking in white-knuckled fists. Severe mouth turned back into that stern frown, brows drawn so low and furrowed that they went over his upper lids.  
  
The lines of his face looked far more burdened than they had not even three months ago when they’d met last.  
  
Apollon looked...beaten. Emeritus made a note to ply him with enough alcohol that he’d start blubbering about whatever it was that distressed him beyond the current subject.  
  
The elder was unsure; something unnameable twisting his upper lip. Not disgust. Not contempt. But, not worry, either.  
  
Anxious, Emeritus decided. Bothered, even.  
  
It was a difficult taste to discern amongst the unearthly. Humans were easy; they _oozed_  their emotions and feelings, sometimes not even aware of what they felt themselves.  
  
Messy, _satisfying_  jumbles. Tasty, too.  
  
The second Emeritus was closed off, even to his brother, retreating himself far back into his head, never letting it out, instead watching helplessly as everything negative boiled over, spitting burning oil and water hot enough to scald the devil. Then, he'd be angry that he'd been so emotional.

He didn’t use to be that way.  
  
Then again, nothing had ever quite been the same since the Hypogeum.  
  
The thought quieted him, began a churning pit in the recesses of his mind, areas locked off and away and burned to even destroy the ashes, though his attention quickly snapped back to the other man when he growled, the sound taking the dark pope back to a thousand different lifetimes, dozens of different bodies, timelines on other planes. Back to when they were new, back when they had walked among the rich and powerful, back before torture.  
  
Before the rosy, if debauched, dream was shattered.  
  
Even still, he didn’t miss those times as good as they had been. With wisdom had come a new fun, though the pain had never left. It was constant. Agonizing.  
  
He envied those who slept.  
  
The black gloves slapped against the surface of the desk, the surface pitted and scored by many men before, nervous habits caused by addictive personalities, by stress, by boredom.  
  
“I’ll never claim to understand him, but what the _fuck_  is he thinking with this one? Can he not choose another?” Not suitable, Apollon thought, feeling a vein pulse on his temple. This was-She was a child trapped in a body too old. Stunted though the past month spent under the church’s care obviously treating her well. The scars were as canyons lacing over her mind and soul. He could see them, could feel them as they came apart, running his ghostly palms over the ravines, recognizing parts of her that they shared. Hurt. Aggression. Terror.  
  
He hated it. He liked even less that they would be... _using_  her. Fuck, he was so _damn_  tired.  
  
The dark pope retreated into the shadows of the room-sensing his brother’s turmoil, tasting his growing rage-to collect a crystal decanter and two glasses. “She’s too soft. Too raw.” Too... _sweet_. Perhaps not soft, per say, but something young about her was crying out...it had been far too long for him to understand what that felt like. Maybe it was better that way. He used to be so immersed in the emotions of those around him, could take them in and feel them as though they were his own...maybe he was too old, now.  
  
The glass clinked as it touched the lip of his cup.  
  
Emeritus poured himself a liberal amount of wine, the vintage so old that the burgundy liquid was bitter enough to down a bison. He would know; the ghouls had tried and succeeded. He also knew what it took to bribe a frothing pack of farmers to go back to their horticulture.  
  
Apollon, his face instantly lighting up in that minuscule way of his at the sight of the rich beverage, readily accepted the glass that was just as full as Alessio’s own. They were both alcoholics, unfortunately, but it was one of the last few things they could share. “It’s a horrible idea.”  
  
“I think that, perhaps, she is too sensitive to a world not her own to handle the strain...and yet...Humans seem to always prove themselves as the tough little fuckers He made them to be.”  
  
“Ah! Leave Him out of this. I’m having a bad enough day as it is.”  
  
Emeritus choked on the honeyed vinegar mid-swallow, “Oh! I’m not _that_  bad, Am I? You’ve only been here five minutes!” The elder hid a toothy grin in a well-timed sip, the younger’s bare face clearly distraught, “Apollo!”  
  
The elder couldn’t help the slight chuff of a laugh; Alessio, as much as he ribbed his older sibling, couldn’t handle what he dished out. He was _sensitive,_ much like how he'd described their divinely touched addition to the clergy, though she was only so in name and not duty. “I’m _playing_ , Emeritus.” He set his glass down, schooling his features to remain impassive as the sour liquor revealed it’s even more horrendous aftertaste, “I want to meet her.”  
  
The elder sensed an immediate change.  
  
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”  
  
Apollon didn’t need to ask why. He was tall, intimidating. His tone biting, mouth unsmiling. He radiated threat and power. He was, also, not very nice.  
  
Brutal where Alessio was understanding. Merciful. It was how they were meant to be; opposites in some ways and same in the other.  
  
He drew back the curtain, his hands feeling naked without the gloves he threw who-knew-where, to look at the girl again, now laying in the sun, the ghoul next to her without his mask. “I feel like I have to. I’ll try to be...personable.”  
  
Emeritus sighed, setting his glass down, “I guess that’s all I can ask for. Come back in a week.”  
  
“A week?”  
  
“Yes, to prepare her. You’ve blindsided people before, Fratello, and this is one we cannot afford to lose.”  
  
Apollon scoffed. “You make me sound like a blundering idiot! We didn’t get so far without our combined charisma. Mine more-so than your’s, I believe.”  
  
“ _Your_  charisma!? I can’t help but remember a time where _your_  charisma was slamming a Shahmam’s head into the stone until it was moosh for her son to find!”  
  
Apollon couldn’t have stopped the laugh if he tried, the sound came deep from his chest, a bark then a rolling clap, strong fangs glinting in the sunlight streaming in through the window.

The memory was savage and vicious and morbid, the weight of her thick blood still staining the grooves of his palms, but it still more cherished than other's. More so for what came after than the act itself as decompressing as it had been. Alessio's reaction when he'd come back in to check on his older brother's progress with bribing the Shahmam at the time had stuck in the elder's mind. The meeting had most definitely not gone as planned.  
  
Alessio couldn’t help but join him, though undoubtedly the Shamam's face still haunted him as all the dead loved to, but he was too struck by the rarity of his brother’s joy to care.


	7. Of Regression, Of Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot is somewhat forwarded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hello im a fuckmothering son of a bitch so its uhhhh,,,,,it's been quite a while. Forgive me this and for the shortness of the chapter, more will come but it's gonna be slow, the original idea and concept I had for this has sorta confused and muddled, but i'm working it back around and i will!!! Finish this bastard!!! Even if it kills me!!!

_You need to find the mother and fast, big brother has arrived.-Water_  
  
Omega groaned. Not _this_  fucker. The totalitarian drama queen had made their immortal lives absolute _torture_ the ten years he’d been their Papa, though it was mostly Alpha he had tormented and, arguably, the trickster did deserve it every now and then. But still, Emeritus the second had a vicious temper Omega had not been looking forward to reacquainting himself with; even with the knowledge that the elder Emeritus brother _did_ have his rare moments of compassion.  
  
He was more predator and totalitarian dictator than leader, quick to assert his dominance with brutality or a savage snarl and swiping talons.  
  
The guitarist brushed a palm over his chest in memory of those wicked knives. Alpha caught the slight shudder that ran over his friend’s body but made no mention. Some things were better left unsaid; unmentioned.

It had been three days and still, they were no closer to finding the mother, the one Papa had called the Snake.  
  
Tanith.

The tension was almost a physical thing, cloying and anxious with every hour that passed without any leads. Omega was worried about being away from the church for so long and Alpha was frustrated that even his fair knowledge when it came to accessing computer files he shouldn't was proving entirely unhelpful.

The broader ghoul looked distracted by something besides their current conundrum, however. Alpha knew the last thing they needed was for Omega to become unfocused.  
  
“What did Water say?”  
  
“...She said big bitch was paying the church a visit.”  
  
Alpha let out a ragged groan, "Well...at least _we_ aren’t there."  
  
The older demon shot him a scathing side-eye. “Yeah, but I have the feeling that he isn’t going to go back to his underground work for a while...” Omega felt his canines tear into his tongue, then sighed. He had to calm down. It wouldn’t do to lose his human face in broad daylight. “Maybe if we start working in the orfanatorio with the Sisters, he’ll leave us alone. You know that he’s uncomfortable around children and it's not like we can leave Earth alone with him-“  
  
Alpha was made a high-pitched, almost neighing sound, interrupting Omega mid-sentence.  
  
“ _Alpha, what the **fuck-"**_  
  
Alpha slapped a palm against his belly, and Omega reared back a fist to retaliate, but he took note of the frantic pointing his fellow ghoul was doing, “No! No, _the smell!”_  
  
Omega followed the accusatory finger to across the street, taking a deep breath. Something tangy and inhuman laid on the breeze. Bitter. Sulphuric.  
  
The ghost of sulfur whipped through the crowd, assaulting his senses. The flash of coppery hair, frizzy and curly and unkempt. Tired eyes. Poisonous dripping from an unholy mouth.  
  
_Tanith._  
  
He could taste her on the back of his tongue, could see the shadow of her true form beneath the thick layers of her ragged clothing.  
  
“Well, well, Alpha,” the Quintessence Ghoul swept out a worn palm with a flourish, “Shall we?”

* * *

  
  
Apollon’s visit-full of shocking smiles and true laughs, rare and as precious as always-had given him a whole fucking lot to think on.  
  
And by a whole fucking lot, Emeritus meant mostly Lorna. The beginning of everything. Primum Movens...Of course, he thought of his brother, too, always as a whirlwind when he came and leaving just as fast as he’d materialized from the shadows. He was still here, though, not committing atrocity or encouraging sin halfway across the world.  
  
Alessio swirled the glass in his hand, studying the way the flickering firelight played with the pungent, amber liquid, illumination casting the occasional spot of red on the pale skin of his palm or wrist.  
  
It wasn’t hard for him to deduce just what kind of life this tiny woman had lived. He could taste it on the back of his tongue, drank of her pain more often than he would care to admit. It made the situation so much more delicate than the powers guiding him could understand. They were unfeeling, uncaring of everything save their _rebellion._ Emeritus felt his upper lip curl. Fuck, every day he was becoming more and more like the Second. Bitter and jaded. As each age passed, the coy charm he had once been embued with felt more like a cloak he pinned to his shoulders than something that came naturally.  
  
He shook his head.  
  
There was an issue at hand that needed his immediate thought, he couldn't get caught up in his own sins, his own becomings...  
  
Well. Multiple issues, both of them pertaining to the girl currently rolling in the mud with her ghoulish guardians. The mud was Water’s fault-he guessed she’d gotten startled and let loose a downpour onto the already damp ground and right onto Earth and Lorna. Earth most likely retaliated by flinging mud at his bandmate and Water's increasingly tenuous hold on her rare temper had probably been snapped, Lorna caught in between the crosshairs of a battle spanning hundreds of years of pent-up aggressions.

Earth and Water had always brought out the best and worst in each other. 

He caught flashes of ash white hair, shining silver of masks and buttons and the revealed gleam of night black horns from the, admittedly, immense distance from his window to the ground. The energy vampire felt her adrenaline as though it were his own and the effort to let her keep the heart-throbbing energy was almost monumental.  
  
So tempting.  
  
The first issue-the one that was most important-was Tanith, the serpent woman who had stolen Lorna from her rightful cradle. Oh sure, she _was_ Lorna’s mother, but there had been deals made and promises broken, and now that the girl had returned...the snake was going to get what she deserved for her deceit.  
  
A noise rumbled deep in his chest, involuntary, mindless. As it left his mouth, hissed between clenched fangs, he couldn’t decipher what it was. Laugh or growl; it was hard to tell these days. He rubbed at his sternum through the thin robe he wore, staring absently into flame.  
  
Her flight from the church was something the first Emeritus, the eldest of three, should have expected. The old coot had been a clever bastard, but he’d been getting up in years even back then, more prone to forgetfulness, listlessness...  
  
An easy oversight for one reaching their eight-hundredth year. Having the same physical body for that long must have been beyond taxing.  
  
The demon supposed the vampire aspect of the trio just hadn’t expected for Tanith to be so difficult to find once she’d disappeared, and if she was, that a pack of ghouls would have no trouble finding her.  
  
Twenty-three _years_ had gone by; the First had died of extremely old age and Lorna had returned to them so influenced by angels she radiated heavenly auras, masking the truth of her own. Or, perhaps she had _become_ heavenly.  
  
Sanctified and changed.  
  
_Untouchable._  
  
He hated angels. They muddled things, made them far more confused and involved than they should have been. They brought things in extremes, never reaching the middle ground. It was either Heaven or Hell. They consumed things in flame or starved away. They followed God, served him without question, so devoted without truly understanding, or they rebelled without a true cause save to make the Earth a reflection of Hell, to spite God even when he showed them the truth of creation.

Alessio, _Emeritus_ , had followed the Lord of the second group. There wasn't really much choice in the matter. His nature could not be denied.

But the golden bastard still brought his slew of problems with him wherever he went.

Problems...

The second problem was something the dark Pope really, really, _really_ did not want to happen. It was foretold, she’d been born for this purpose, crafted to perfection for it. But it was sick and _wrong_ and not for the first time did he wish that he was not what he was. That he did not want to be the leader of this futile cause, that he had just stayed in the shadows of history and was not brought to light by Lucifer.

Emeritus ran a hand over his mouth. Maybe he'd been amongst humanity for too long, changed by God's favored creations just as Lorna had been changed by their servants.  
  
He didn’t want this role. He didn’t want to cause any more pain. Where before he had reveled in it, and truthfully still did, he had come to care for the twerp in his own way. It was hard not to when she radiated hurt and vulnerability like she needed someone to protect the parts of her that were raw and broken.  


* * *

  
  
The nightmares were getting worse and she didn’t know who to turn to. At first, her surroundings had emboldened her; the abundance of food, the secure rooms and friendly eyes and powerful friends; all of it.  
  
The nightmares were beginning to strip it away again. Whatever personal progress Lorna had felt she was beginning to make had started to recede. She felt a child now more than ever, but she tried her damnedest to keep herself from withdrawing into the recesses of her mind and into the oceans of vibrant premonitions pounding at the back of her skull. She cursed the ability now just as she had a thousand times before.  
  
Two weeks of a growing strength, two weeks of a regression.  
  
She’d only taken a short nap after dinner-a sudden exhaustion having taken over her, odd but not unusual-surely not long enough to get so caught up in the otherworldly, but she’d been pulled down, down, down into herself and past the crust of the Earth and into impossible heat, almost into waiting arms and the shadow of a many wings and the gaze of many eyes-  
  
The only thing that had brought her back this time before she could be stolen to whoever wanted to see her-whoever wanted to _have_ her-was a familiar energy, strong and as placid as the surface of a doldrum.  
  
Jegudiel.  
  
Blinding light, shining bright, engulfing her wholly, the murmur of comfort sliding into an empty slot, a torn hole in her being.  
  
But it still wasn’t enough.  
  
She was still wrong and Jegudiel’s brief intervention was too little, too late. It enraged her that he would deign her dreams something to protect her from, even as the woman knew they weren’t truly as benign as a dream.  
  
What of all the times she had cried out for them? That she had forgone the plea to a God that had never answered and instead called to the one who had promised her her safety? Who had promised to be there always?  
  
Lorna didn’t want to think on it for longer than she had to, pushing the event from the forefront of her consciousness, wiping away any tears she'd begun to shed in response to the shock. She'd cried enough for herself and for Jegudiel.

She was so fucking tired of _crying._  
  
She had nightly duties to complete-it was Lorna’s turn to wash dishes-and the girl knew she would get in trouble with Sister Imperator, but the woman just couldn’t bring herself to slide off the comfortable window seat and away from the soothing, cold night air. That exhaustion that had plagued her during dinner was still latched onto her, still making it difficult to move. But her mind was awake, racing violently as her skull pounded and her eyes vibrated. A vision was coming, and this one was not going to be so easily ignored or escaped from.

Someone wanted to see her, wanted to speak to her.

Badly.

The woman decided that she would wait until it washed over her, overcame her, to worry about it.  
  
The wind chill was so cold that it made her hands hurt and her cheeks sting, but the delicate flowers framing the little portico didn’t seem too bothered by the weather, so Lorna decided she wouldn’t be too worried about it, either. Besides, pain helped her think and helped to settle her mind and it wasn't so bad wrapped up in her duvet like she was. 

The cold was welcome from the searching whips of Hell, hot and violent and hateful. This was ambivalent. The cold did not care who you were, it did try to drag you down, it did not seek you out. It would kill you if you let it, but now, it was soothing. 

The cold was welcome...

* * *

  
Time passed, the hour dark, and though she still gazed out to the world beyond, her face pressed against the ancient frame, a restlessness had settled in her legs and brain. It made her want to flap her hands. She clutched them to her chest instead. Mother had always hated when she did that.  
  
The thought of that hateful figure quelled the desire to leave the safety of the room, soft in color, even with the hazy, flickering shadows, and light in air, none of the heavy moisture her apartment had had, none of the stench of rot that had grown so familiar to her senses throughout the short span of her life.  
  
Lorna settled for pacing, instead, dragging her feet across the slick wood and the plush, ornate rug Earth had gotten her.  
  
It wasn’t as satisfying as a mindless walk down the still foreign corridors, but it would have to do. Repetitive motion had always helped settle the static when pain didn't, blocking out sound and touch and taste, but always amplifying smell.  
  
She wasn’t sure if that was odd or not, though, having no one to really ask about it. Another quirk to contend with.  
  
Half-way across the floor of her countless back-and-forth, a strange scent in the air arrested her floating attention, one that she’d never noticed before. It was familiar, like something she’d known in a dream. A dream that was not a dream as all her nightly adventures were _far_ more than conjurations of her mind.

The pacing came to a stand-still, her bare feet brushing against the carpet in thought.  
  
They began to move again with purpose.  
  
Find the scent.  
  
She walked the perimeter of the room, determining that it wasn’t the flowers framing her window and it wasn’t something carried by the night air through the ancient, creaking frame. It wasn’t from the adjoining restroom, and it wasn’t from the bed or the armoire.  
  
All that was left was the vanity, clear of everything save the odd flower Earth had given her that very first day almost a full month ago and a hairbrush. She pushed her bangs behind her ears, the locks long enough to tickle at the tip of her nose, her hair the longest she'd ever had it.  
  
Lorna slid onto the small stool before the cream-colored vanity with caution, careful not to look at herself in the oval mirror.  
  
There had always been something _off_ about the plant-though there was something distinctly off about the entire church compound-with its unnatural petals and thick, almost plush stem. An odd mixture of succulent and perennial, bright, fluorescent yellow in the middle and deep, almost black burgundy at the edges.  
  
It wasn’t a plant that Earth had ever deigned to teach her about in their studies, so she’d never thought it important, more that it was a purely aesthetic species without any use, an excuse for the bubbly personality to push his way into her life.  
  
The smell it was giving off, though, was almost foul, like something that had been dead for some time. Earth most likely wouldn’t care that she’d thrown it away, he seemed pretty easy going, but perhaps, she thought, she should ask him if it was normal for the thing to put off that rotten, almost cheesy scent-  
  
A knock at the door.  
  
Lorna whipped her head around to look at her electric clock. _0100 hours_. The night sermon had begun an hour before, usually lasting more than three, but that was only for _actual_ church members. Panic settled in her gut, something she knew was probably unfounded and unnecessary, but something the blonde honestly couldn’t help.  
  
The church was full of spirits, malignant and apathetic alike, and though none of them had found her interesting enough to bother with her, perhaps that sentiment had changed-  
  
“Lorna, it’s Papa, are you awake?”  
  
_Emeritus._ She still wasn’t sure if what to make of him, but he seemed safe enough despite his nature. Carnivorous and starved and licentious.  
  
He had shown her unprecedented kindness.  
  
“Lorna, sweet girl, I must speak with you if you wouldn’t mind?”  
  
It would be _rude_ not to answer.  
  
Her mind completely distracted from the issue of her plant-most likely, not of this plane of existence-she shuffled quickly to the barrier, unlocking the knob and the three deadbolts she’d installed without anyone’s permission but keeping the slider in place so that she could crack open her door, just to make sure her visitor _was_ , in fact, Papa, and not something using his voice.  
  
Death's mask met her, the face beneath the thick paint perhaps more ragged than he had been when they’d last spoken, but those eyes were unmistakable; the energy he emitted potent and familiar.   
  
She closed it again, undoing the slider. Lorna knew she didn't have to worry about Papa ratting her out to Sister Imperator about the modifications to her door. He was trustworthy, holding secrets she hadn't even meant to keep.  
  
Emeritus sensed a slight sheepishness from the Church-ward but quickly reeled himself back in. Lorna could feel his intrusions and the late hour probably wouldn’t make them as welcome as they were in the light of day.   
  
The door-something he’d made sure was of a more reinforced material without her knowing-opened with an eager motion.  
  
“You can-uh-“, Lorna cleared her throat, the return of that nervous energy a palpable thing, “-You can come in, Papa.” Her eyes were pointedly away from him. Bashful, exposed.  
  
He gave her a soft smile, biting back the hungry flick of his tongue, hoping to dispel the shock his late night visit would most definitely give her. It was an intimate act to step into someone else’s space, the cloak of their safety, and especially so late.  
  
She was clothed only in a rumpled cassock, her thin legs bare and splotchy with the chill of her room. His eyes shifted from the short woman in front of him, shuffling her feet and twisting her hands, to the open window across the room.  
  
“Did the night call to you?”  
  
“Huh? Oh! The-The window. I’ll close it, it’s probably cold in here-“  
  
“Don’t close it on my account, but I think that if you are to keep it open, you might want to put some pants on, or-“ a quick look around the room found a thick blanket in a bundle at the edge of her bed, a bed missing its duvet, fast hands throwing it over bony, shivering shoulders “-a covering a bit thicker than a cassock.” He let his palms linger over her shoulders, sliding his hands down over her arms to the edge of the blanket, drawing it a bit tighter around the woman looking at him with owl eyes, wide and attentive and unblinking. Those pale lashes caught the light in a way that made them look like spun gold-

Emeritus mentally shook his head.  
  
His hands left her and her own slender fingers curled tight around the edges of the blanket, tucking herself into the shroud. “Thanks.”  
  
He took a moment while she hid in the fuzzy fabric to take in his surroundings. Very few personal effects save the rumpled sheets of the bed, the obviously used and loved window seat, a brush on the vanity.  
  
The flower on the vanity.  
  
His face went guarded as he appraised the familiar plant. Someone had been working behind his back, setting plans into motion that he hadn’t approved.  
  
Disquiet settled in his gut. He would have to consult Apollon on the matter. Punishment had never been his forte and someone _would_ be punished for this transgression of privacy.  
  
“So...”  
  
His attention snapped back to the tiny woman before him, looking for all the world like she was trying to disappear in the bright fabric enshrouding her as she looked to him, seeing the slight pinch between his brows, but the otherwise casual cant of his head, long black hair falling into his eyes, the comfortable shift of his hips. Hands in his pockets.  
  
He wasn’t in full regalia, a black button-up with a priest’s collar, slacks and dress shoes making an even more relaxed appearance allowing her to settle further. It was fine, nothing was wrong, he just wanted to talk to her, maybe have her do something so that he could bail her out of skipping chores. Yeah, everything was fine.  
  
“What do you need? Isn’t there midnight mass going on right now?”  
  
“That was yesterday, dearest girl.”  
  
Had she lost a day? What the fuck?  
  
“Have-have I been sleeping for long?”  
  
That warm smile softened his resting face, “You haven’t missed a day at all, I don’t think. Perhaps you would do well with a calendar, hm?” Lorna ducked her head into the fabric she’d bunched up beneath her chin, cheeks a flaming red with the embarrassment that she didn't know important scheduling even as she'd lived in the church for over four weeks, “No, I’m here because I have to ask something of you that may be difficult.”  
  
“Ok.”  
  
Emeritus felt his brow twitch. “Just like that?”  
  
“Well, you’re making me awful nervous, but how can I say no? It would be rude-“  
  
_“Lorna.”_ She stepped back at the sudden intensity of his voice, his eyes, the accent dipping low into something old and worn and authoritative. “You _always_ have the power to say no. I will never force you to do something so long as you are here and as long as it is within my power. I will protect that right with my life if need be.” Emeritus took a deep breath to calm himself, it wouldn’t do to set her off-kilter with his own growing instability. That response had been much more spirited than he had meant it to be. His affection was clouding his judgment and his change in personality would have him replaced at this pivotal moment, just as Apollon was replaced for the same reason, though it was the elder's uncontrollable rage that did him in.  
  
_“Now,_ let me rephrase the request. I have a situation that you could help me with if you so choose.”   
  
Lorna looked back up at him, pale eyes swimming with things he refused to seek out and put names to, pale lips pursed. “What would I be doing?”   
  
“There’s a guest here that wants to ask you questions about your mother. The way you grew up; anything you might have seen that was strange before you came to the church. He’s my brother, but he missed out on the socialite gene-“ that drew a ghost of a laugh, his attention flickering briefly to the pearly glint of white teeth, “-so he’s a pretty surly individual. Think you can handle it? It will be a very personal questionnaire.”  
  
“If he’s related to you, he can’t be all that bad.”

* * *

 

It was bad, it was so fucking bad and she was so fucking _fucked._

Emeritus and his brother were _nothing_ alike. At least not in their spirits. Physically, she could see it despite the height differences and the softer, more approachable look about Papa. His brother radiated a meanness that she had become accustomed to in another life, and those eyes, similar and not to her Emeritus', pierced through her, seeking out the parts of herself that even she didn't know. Frown lines cut deeply into his face whereas Emeritus had deep crow's feet at the corners of his eyes.

She felt like she was gonna pass out. He was so _tall_ and his aura was so broad and _heavy,_ thickening the air, even sitting down as they were.

_Jesus H. Christ._

The situation was made a little bit better by Papa sitting on the other side of the couch she was curled up on, but the screaming directness of his brother's presence practically throttled her. He was projecting his mind rather forcefully, but he didn't seem to notice he was doing it. She'd felt a similar intrusive presence a few days before, but had thought it was just a famished Papa not being as gentle as he usually was.

Apparently, it had been his older brother.

"Lorna Keshishian, you may call me Apollon. Shall we begin?" There were a thousand stories behind that name, each one pushing themselves to the forefront of her mind, overloading her senses before Papa discreetly soothed her with a phantom palm, draining the confusion, the growing terror. 

"I-yeah. Yeah, let's start."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of 8/31/2018, this chapter was edited and slightly revised. I do believe I will be visiting this story again even though my life has taken a very different turn and the people who inspired it are no longer in my life.


End file.
